Tag: cider vinegar

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar fermenting on the counter on Oct. 10, 2025.

On Friday, I finished the last jar of apple cider vinegar. It’s been a big apple year, and it’s not over yet. Red Delicious still hang on the tree, and three bushels wait by the furnace. The remaining apples are for snacking or recipes like applesauce cake and cider. We don’t drink much cider, but the stuff from the backyard is every bit as good as what you’d get at an orchard or the store.

In 2013, a neighbor introduced me to home vinegar making. I’ve written about it half a dozen times on this blog and it is really simple. Here is a handy process outline:

  • Have home grown apples or know someone who does. It is too expensive to buy apples from a retailer for vinegar.
  • Apple selection is important. I don’t spray my trees, or do much of anything to grow bigger apples. I use Red Delicious apples for cider vinegar because I have so many of them in good years. They are also sweet with plenty of sugars for fermentation. After they ripen, I harvest a large quantity and sort them into categories: near perfect fruit (for refrigerator storage), best (fresh eating), seconds (culinary uses), gnarly apples with some usable flesh, and wildlife food. I find the gnarly apples make excellent cider because in paring them to cut away the bad spots, more apple skin goes into the juicer and gives the liquid a darker, more desirable color.
  • Equipment. My toolbox includes a Juiceman Juicer (the kind advertised on television back in the ancient days when I viewed the medium), a paring knife and a chef’s knife with large cutting board, two large Rubbermaid plastic pitchers, two different cone funnels, a large slotted spoon for skimming apple scum after juicing, a basting tool, and ten half gallon Mason jars. Vinegar will ferment on its own yet to speed up the process, I add an eighth of a teaspoon of Red Star Premier Blanc yeast, used primarily in wine-making. While not really hardware, it is a tool.
  • Set up work stations. You will need five: an apple sorting area (mine’s near the furnace), an apple washing station, a cutting station, a juicing station, and a fermentation station. Once fermentation begins, I have a shelf in a dark pantry where it finishes.
  • I did not keep time records. From the washing station to the fermentation station took roughly 12-15 hours to produce five half gallons over six daily shifts.
  • Make the vinegar.

Here are some notes.

  • Things go more quickly if larger apples are used. In a home garden that is not always possible. As mentioned, I use gnarly apples which takes more time.
  • Do a lot of work at each station. For example, cut and pare a large pile of apples at a time. Accumulate a big bowl or two of cut apples before juicing them. Focusing on a single task for a longer duration seems easier.
  • Keep the juicer clean. Stop juicing as many times as needed to ensure the solids are not backing up and blocking something.
  • The liquid coming from the juicer has four main components. A buoyant pulp that should be skimmed off and composted before pouring the extract into the Rubbermaid pitchers through a cone funnel. Allow the liquid to rest in the pitchers until it separates. There will be three layers: the top is grated bits of apple skins and flesh, the middle is the amber cider, and some apple particles sink to the bottom. If I have a quart or less left over at the end of a shift, I put that in a Mason jar and let it separate overnight.
  • Prepare the jars. Pour out what’s left in them — a mix of last year’s vinegar and the mother. I always keep a little vinegar in the jars to protect the mother until I’m ready for a new batch. Once the jars are clean and dry, place some of the mother back in and pour enough of last year’s vinegar to cover it.
  • I use the baster to get through the top layer to the cider in the middle. One baster at a time I transfer the liquid to the half gallon jars. When the jar is half filled, I add the one eighth teaspoon of yeast so it gets mixed in adequately.
  • Leave at least one inch of headspace in the jars. Then cover them with a cotton cloth secured by a rubber band.
  • Now we wait for fermentation to begin. it won’t take long, within a hour or so. As it begins, make sure there is enough headspace. Every batch is a little different depending on the fruit. I give fermentation a couple of days on the counter to get started. A reason I leave them on the counter a couple of days is so I don’t forget they are active. Once you finish this step they can be moved to pantry.

If I miss a few years, I have plenty of vinegar stored in one liter bottles to last. Like with anything, I use the oldest vinegar first. Pro tip: Clean all the equipment, especially the juicer, every day at the end of the shift. You will be glad you did.

Gnarly apples make the best vinegar.
Categories
Kitchen Garden

Apple Management

Crimson Crisp apples from the garden, Aug. 12, 2025.

These two Crimson Crisp apples fell from the tree during Tuesday morning’s thunderstorms. They looked undamaged so I picked them up and ate one of them for an afternoon snack. “Delicious,” he punned. They need to be picked. Apples are beginning to back up in the kitchen, so I better get going with the process.

Stories of my father’s people were about apples. The women worked in an apple canning plant and grew multiple trees on their properties. My great aunt Carrie said she ate apples every day of her life. She passed on a simple recipe for fried apples. Of course the men worked mining coal. Father was lucky to escape such a future when he was a teenager.

I wrote before about my father and apples here. This is the salient memory from that post:

Father taught me to eat apples after a trip on River Drive to buy a bushel.

It seemed unusual to secure so many at once, but he knew someone, and with a limited weekly income from the meat packing plant, the family took what help he could find.

Dad used a knife to cut away bad spots and avoid eating worms. I remember him rocking in a chair eating apples with a paring knife after dinner. He didn’t call them “knife apples.” I coined that term when describing the fruit from our trees. (Knife Apples, Paul Deaton, Oct. 10, 2014).

When we moved to Big Grove Township, I planted six apple trees at the time of my mother-in-law’s death. Three of those remain, one Red Delicious, and two Earliblaze. They are all reaching the end of their lives, but as long as they produce, I don’t cut them down. Recently I planted one Zestar! and one Crimson Crisp in a different spot in the yard. This year is the first all four varieties are producing.

Now that I have a producing orchard, what next?

I grew out of the idea of processing every possible apple into something. Apples now get divided into three major categories. The best ones are tucked away in a refrigerator drawer for eating with a knife. Most of those do not have visible imperfections. The seconds are saved for making three major products: Apple butter (usually 12 pints per major harvest); apple sauce (a dozen quarts and two dozen pints); and apple cider vinegar to fill all my containers. I need about 3-4 gallons this year. When the vinegar jars are filled, I usually reserve a quart or two of fresh apple juice for drinking from the refrigerator. Any other apples are comprised of fallen fruit and the least desirable of what I pick (small or too many imperfections). These go in a pile near the lilac bushes on the property line. They usually sit there decomposing from now until winter, yet in the spring they have all been eaten by wildlife who need winter food.

I used to make dried apples in a dehydrator, but just don’t eat them. Once they get used up from last time, that will be the end. In short, I process to make what I make and anything else goes to wildlife. Extra apples are not usually shared. It takes a certain type of outlook to turn a gnarly apple into applesauce or vinegar. Wildlife don’t complain and eat everything I put out for them.

The main challenge in apple management is getting everything done before they start going bad. That’s where I currently am. The Zestar! have been processed, there are two containers of Earliblaze in the kitchen waiting for processing and a lot on the trees, I’ll pick Crimson Crisp today or tomorrow, and Red Delicious, which is my workhorse apple, are still ripening and won’t be ready for another month or so. Apple management is a process of continuous improvement. Re-defining and knowing what I want is important to keeping my sanity in this busy time of the garden year. Apples are worth the work.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Goal Posts Moved in 2024

Pac choi under a covered row.

Instead of getting the garden in by Memorial Day, I moved the date to June 20 when summer begins. I have five plots laid out, plan to skip one this year, and may skip part or all of another. Large amounts of rain kept me out of the spring garden. The shelves in the greenhouse are slowly emptying, and soon initial planting will be finished.

We’ve been cleaning to make room for technicians to repair our washing machine. It generated a code which I couldn’t resolve, so I made an appointment. The service company telephoned and said I should contact Maytag about covering the repair under warranty. I did and they will. The code first appeared at almost exactly at the end of the initial warranty period.

It is surprising how much a modern household depends upon getting laundry done. I can’t imagine what it would be like to return to laundromats. The one in our small city closed years ago, so it would be a big to-do of traveling to the county seat or further to launder clothes. There is only so much time in a life. The less spent on laundry the better.

I opened the covered row and an abundance of pac choi, lettuce, and basil was ready. I brought the haul indoors, cleaned it, and put it away in the refrigerator. I made a sandwich with a generous amount of fresh lettuce for lunch. I don’t often buy lettuce at the grocer, so when I have it in the garden, I make the most of it.

There will be pac choi ramen. In January I bought a 24-pack of Maruchan ramen. When I make it, I throw out the flavor packet that comes with it and make my own broth. This time, I’ll make a vegetable broth using white miso, then saute onions, garlic and pac choi, mix them together, and cook the noodles in the resulting liquid. The abundance of fresh leafy greens is wonderful.

Also in the kitchen garden mix is pasta sauce using last year’s tomato sauce, onions, fresh basil and garlic. This first of the season sauce is also a chance to try out my new saucier. Basil doesn’t keep long, so by the time this posts, I may already have made it.

There is one head of romaine lettuce which I’ll roughly chop for a salad. Not sure what to do for dressing, but it will inevitably use extra virgin olive oil and home made apple cider vinegar. I can’t wait.

While I had to move the goal posts for finishing planting the garden, the harvest already begins. These are the good days for which we live during the long winter. It’s life, as good as it gets.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Apple Cider Vinegar Time

Setup for juicing apples for apple cider vinegar.

Turning two five-gallon buckets of EarliBlaze apples into juice for apple cider vinegar took about three hours including set up and clean up. Three half gallon mason jars are fermenting in the pantry, and a quart and a half of juice is in the ice box. I drank some of the juice with tacos for supper. It was a good day.

There was already plenty of cider vinegar in the pantry: seven liter bottles, two half gallon mason jars and a couple of smaller bottles in the cupboard near the stove. The goal is to make some vinegar with every apple crop because some years there is no crop. It has not been a problem because vinegar keeps and apples are abundant.

Apple Cider Vinegar

I’ve been making apple cider vinegar since a neighbor gave me some of the mother passed down through his family since at least the 19th Century. I call it “ultra local” because the apples were grown a few steps from the kitchen.

I spent a couple of hours on Wednesday delivering a “Drinking Water Health Advisory” to every home on our public water system. My shirt soaked through with sweat as I walked the two miles of roads. It was good exercise even though I didn’t enjoy some of the steeper hills.

About a dozen people were out in their yards, providing an opportunity to connect. While the news I delivered wasn’t the best, all but one of them had heard of the problem I posted via Facebook and email. Most were in good spirits and appreciated knowing what was going on regarding the water system. I met via conference call with our engineer and water system operator in the morning and laid out a simple plan to address the problem. Here’s hoping for a speedy resolution.

With Tuesday’s announcement that Christina Bohannan is running for congress in Iowa’s second congressional district, I’ve been reflecting on the congressional campaigns in which I’ve been involved. I began to get active when we lived in Indiana, helping Pete Visclosky get re-elected to a third term. He retired in January this year.

Rep. Jim Leach represented the area where I grew up from 1977 to 2003. He moved to Iowa City after redistricting for the 2002 election and was elected there twice. While he was Republican, the district wasn’t as partisan as it is now. When we lived in Indiana I saw Leach hold hearings on Whitewater in the House Banking Committee, which he chaired. After that I realized it was time for him to go. When he became my congressman in 2003, I began working toward that end. In 2006 we elected Dave Loebsack to the Congress where he served until this year.

The 2020 election was a disappointment because the congressional vote was evenly split. Democrat Rita Hart contested the results, but nothing came of it. Mariannette Miller-Meeks was sworn in to the 117th Congress. We are at the beginning of another campaign.

It is time to pass the baton to the next generation in congressional politics. With the isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, I did very little volunteer work in politics during the last cycle. Rita Hart made it to our precinct only during the last days before the election, with little enthusiasm for her candidacy. With the resurgence of the pandemic, I see that approach continuing. Besides, it is time to let younger, more engaged people manage campaigns. In the end I’d rather spend time politicking with my neighbors than get involved in the massive energy and expense of a district campaign.

Maybe it was the scent of the apples that evoked this political remembrance. That tasty sweetness which over time will be converted to vinegar. As I age, astringent flavor is more interesting than sweet. I crave it. I make it. I look forward to using the new batch of apple cider vinegar. I both know where it came from and the chef who makes it.

Making apple cider vinegar is part of a life worth living.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Vinegar Time

Apples
Apples

With the apple harvest comes an opportunity to make apple cider vinegar.

Since 2012, when I began to wake up to local food, I’ve posted about vinegar twice: Bottling Apple Cider Vinegar in 2013, and Making Vinegar in 2014.

Without a home apple crop, this year’s batch is a little different.

The continuum of vinegar making goes back a long time: it’s the mother. Mine was procured from a neighbor and has been present since I began home fermentation of apples. His mother of vinegar had been in the family since the 19th century when Iowa was first settled. Traces of vinegar have been found in Egyptian urns dated the third millennium BCE.

The recipe for vinegar is simple. Keep a container of vinegar with the mother in the pantry and add apple juice from time to time. Cover with a cotton cloth for ventilation and let it ferment. After the bacteria have converted sugars to alcohol, then alcohol to vinegar, it’s ready to bottle and use. Currently there is a gallon ready to use and a gallon just started this year. At least one jar never goes empty to preserve the mother.

My production is small compared to the orchard where I work on weekends. We both use the same mother, although he uses brewer’s yeast to hasten production of alcohol. My method, using apples from my back yard and no yeast, works as well but takes more time. Making vinegar is about time more than anything.

This year I stopped at a shop that caters to people who ferment their own beer and wine to ask about brewer’s yeast. The proprietor said I was the first customer to arrive asking about making vinegar. Not a lot of people make their own.

After studying a few things on the internet he recommended a yeast made by a major company that would produce about 14 percent alcohol. He said too much alcohol may kill the vinegar bacteria. Both of us thought the low end of alcohol production would not. The $0.99 packet I bought will ferment a lot of apple cider.

Without a crop at home, I’m using cider from where I work. It is flash pasteurized, which will allow my bacteria to drive the process. I hope it is a better result. I bought half-gallon Mason jars  for the project and have two started about 3 weeks apart.

I trimmed the mother with a pair of kitchen scissors and put part in the jar. I added a scant half gallon of cider and let it warm to room temperature. I added a 16th teaspoon of yeast which began producing alcohol within a couple of days. The liquid tastes more like hard cider today with hints of vinegar. The process appears to be working.

I organized and bottled last year’s production and am ready for winter. I’ll keep making it and making pickles and dressings with it.

Making apple cider vinegar is one way we emulate an agrarian life in a modern kitchen. It’s also how we sustain our lives in a turbulent world.

Categories
Writing

Apple Tree Takes a Hit

Vroken Branch
Broken Branch

The Golden Delicious apple tree had been having trouble for a long time. Last night it took a hit as the combination of a fruit-laden branch attached to a disease weakened trunk broke off.

It was one of the last crop bearing limbs, so this winter the tree will have to come down.

It’s not a crisis. More a sign of what’s to come.

I planted six apple trees, including this one, after my mother-in-law’s funeral. The rest of the family drove to her home near Ames where I would join them once the bare root stock from Stark Brothers was in the ground. That was more than 20 years ago.

Since then, two more trees have been lost—this one makes three. The remaining trees produce enough fruit for our household which is loaded with cider vinegar, applesauce, apple butter and dried apples. We pick the best and leave or give away the rest. We’ll be fine.

Fallen Branch
Fallen Branch

After taking the photos, an hour in the kitchen produced juice for cider vinegar. I filled the two-quart jar that holds the mother for another season of fermentation.

We recently turned up a few old items of food. We have some vintage 2008 Duncan Hines cake mix, which I decided would be a reasonable vehicle to eat more apple butter. I made the lemon flavored one first. Squares of cake topped with vintage apple butter makes a delicious dessert. When I say “vintage apple butter” I mean the jars are labeled so the variety and circumstances from which the apples originated is known.

This morning I made a batch of tapioca. It’s not like pudding, but it is close enough that I plan to make more at least until the three boxes are used up. Not sure what prompted that purchase circa 2007, but the result, prepared according to instructions on the box was decent. If I can figure out the layers, it would be great to make a parfait. Perhaps to be served like ice cream.

The garden yielded a dozen cucumbers, the same number of Brandywine tomatoes, celery, green peppers and a few cherry and grape tomatoes. There is plenty of kale, but I’m letting the plants rest for a while before resuming regular harvest. No noticeable bugs have invaded… yet.

This report and its observations aside, it is a peculiar time.

The fallen apple tree branch is a reminder of the life’s brief span. Accepting the tree’s demise has long been avoided. Until this morning.

I accept it. Despite the downward curve of the arc, there is time to plant another tree. If not for me, then for whoever inhabits this plot of ground after we are gone. Looking forward to putting new stock in the ground.