Monday 5 May 2014

Making vinegar



More than two years ago I was pulling the last of our parsnips, big as a man's legs, out of the muddy winter soil. I made some of them into wine, which didn’t turn out well; vegetable wine seems to be a much trickier business than flower wine, like dandelions or elderflowers.

The good news, though, is that I was able to take the wine and make it into vinegar, simply by buying organic, unfiltered, live-culture vinegar from a store in Dublin, mixing it with the undrinkable wine and letting it sit in a bucket, covered in the shed, for six months. The result has been a nice salad vinegar, similar to apple-cider vinegar and perfect for mixing into salad dressing.

2 comments:

Anubis Bard said...

Interesting. When you say you let it sit in a bucket, could you be more specific? Just open to the air? Doubtless I'll produce some undrinkable wine before too long. My parsnips didn't amount to anything this year or I'd have tried to make some wine from them.

Brian Kaller said...

Andy,

No, I closed the lid, but not air-tight. It's the same plastic bucket I use for wines, and am using right now for beer -- well-cleaned first, of course.

If you give it a try, let me know how it goes.