HOMEMADE APPLE CIDER VINEGAR

BREAKING THE RULES 

 What a serendipity outcome when we were actually trying to make cider!  Well maybe not after more research we discovered that this was actually a 50/50 certainty!  We did not want to use a campden tablet which if you do not will give you a 50/50 lottery that you will either end up with dry cider or apple cider vinegar!  One of them is a certainty!  I can't take all the credit for this awesome homemade apple cider vinegar with the mother as my foraging, self sufficient, preserving, canning and great cooking friend was the keeper of the demijohns and because we were too busy to decant the cider on the due day and we moved the demijohn to a cooler climate half way through the cider making process we ended up completely by accident or as I'm sure a experienced cider maker will disagree due to our gung ho approach, with a brilliant ten gallons of Homemade Apple Cider Vinegar.  How happy are we as this a daily ingredient in our kitchens.

Garden Apple Cider Vinegar

9 months matured

Gung Ho Method!

1 batch garden apples juiced or pressed

pulp left behind is important

Yield 1gallon per demijohn 

1 sterilised fermentation bucket

1/2 tsp pectin enzyme per 5 ltr or 1.32 gallons

Pray for natural yeast...

Place your pressed clear apple juice in your fermenting bucket, add 1/2 tsp of pectin enzyme per 5ltr of apple juice, cover and leave to ferment for 24 hrs.  Whisk the apple juice to aerate creating some frothing on top, leave covered to ferment for a further five days, now this is working with the natural yeast in the air and in the juice, this is not dissimilar to a sour dough ferment where the wild yeast is your ferment, I have had a sourdough ferment that's only been alive for a few years now we're as Boudian bakery in San Francisco America is 162 years old!

Decant from the fermentation bucket into your demijohns and place the bubble air release lock on.  Place the demijohns for around four months in a place with a steady temperature of 15 degrees, as cider is a autumn joy this is quite easy, however we placed our demijohns in the airing cupboard which was a little higher in temperature then realising our error moved the demijohns to a cooler place, not a great move for cider, but a great move for apple cider vinegar!  

Old fashioned apples from a wonderful old old tree around 150 years old.  I've never before had the privilege to pick or hold apples from a tree this old and these apples are magnificent, so large and fairy tale in appearance, these are classed as cooking apples but believe me these beautiful red cooking apples from many days gone by are so sweet and sour balanced I felt these were better than most modern eating apples today.