Our vinegar collection is growing slowly. Besides our standard Apple, Pear, Elderflower and Kombucha vinegar, we also have Quince vinegar as a special for the second year in a row.
A new addition for this year is this gorgeous looking Stinging Nettle vinegar.
It is made with baby Nettles which come at the beginning of April. Those are always most powerful medicinally and the always taste the best.
We always pick the Nettles which have reddish tinge underneath the leaves.
We have been using them for years to make our seasonal Stinging Nettle Bärbucha Kombucha, and we know that they will give us a beautiful color, in addition to a yummy taste.
To make this vinegar, we use our Apple vinegar and the Nettles.
This way we get the benefits of both ingredients - a living Apple vinegar and fresh, young Nettles.
We keep it going till a new mother vinegar forms on top, as can be seen on the picture below.
At that point we strain it.
And it goes into storage and retail bottles.
And here it is, along with our other vinegars.
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The second vinegar that is still in the works, is Elderberry vinegar.
This will be the second year in a row that we will have it, and we can't wait till it's ready.
Unfortunately, it takes good 6 months for that to happen.
To make it, we start with picked through Elderberries and sugar.
After about a month, we strain the berries and we end up with a black and tasty syrup.
That syrup goes into our vinegar jars and from this point it takes quite some time to it to naturally turn into vinegar.
When it is finally ready, a beautiful vinegar mother forms on the surface. That is a good sign that our vinegar is ready.
Here are the vinegar mothers from last year.
Next, we bottle the vinegar for retail and for storage.
And when it's finally ready...
Tbc...
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There is still one more vinegar that we are waiting for. And this one seems to be taking even more time that our Elderberry one.
It will be White Wine vinegar.
For this one, we started with green grapes.
And we set them up in September 2023.
Since then, it's been strained, and it clarified naturally. Also all the sugar is gone and it's very dry and alcoholic. To speed things up, we have added one of our Apple vinegar mothers.
It will still be a while before it's ready, but we'll post an update, when that time comes.
Tbc...