rice vinegar in progress
2024 has definitely been the Year of Vinegar in our house!
Fermentation on a small scale has transitioned to ensuring we have staples of many of our favorites on hand, going beyond our original regular making of apple- and pear- cider vinegars and now experimenting in other realms. Here's what else we've currently got in progress...
Rice Vinegar - While this one is a longer process, we use so much rice vinegar that I posed the question to my fermentation-happy husband, "hey can we make this?" And sure enough, plenty of recipes out there, and using the little Mason jar fermentation lock thingamajig has been awesome for this project. So I'll let ya know how it turns out, as a bottle of organic rice vinegar runs $8-9 so would much rather MIY (make it yourself)!
Red Wine Vinegar - We had some neighbors over for a casual get-together a couple weeks back and someone had brought over a sweet gift of a bottle of Merlot, but one that we knew would not ever get poured (just tastes too much like fruit juice to me), nor do I cook with wine enough to make it last that way. Guess what I asked my husband to research? Ba-da-bing! Used this super easy recipe, and it's in our handy-dandy fermentation closet***, preparing to make itself the base of a perfect vinaigrette just in time for Thanksgiving.
Plum Vinegar - While on a walk in the neighborhood, we learned that there was an plum tree overflowing with fruit on the far end of the long-ignored edge of their property...and my husband joined in with others and picked a small bag of ripe plums to make vinegar from it. I'm not a plum person, but he is - and is absolutely loving his latest vinegar creation...
Next up? We've just kicked off the 'mother' (heh heh) of all vinegar projects, a big ass jug of white vinegar for cleaning. Crossing fingers!
***NOTE: "Fermentation closet," you ask? As simple folks, we don't own enough linens in our hall closet to fill it, so we use the existing shelves - since it's right around the corner from the kitchen and more mild in temperature than our cooler pantry adjacent to the garage - for fermentation, as well as hanging fresh pasta to dry when my husband makes mega batches of it).
ACV (left), Rice Vinegar (rear), and Red Wine Vinegar (front) in progress...
Comments