Fermenting blackberry wine, apple cider vinegar

The autumnal harvest continues in Somerset, and so do my experiments in fermenting and home-brewing. The latest projects are blackberry wine, and apple cider vinegar.

Fermenting bucket and airlock

Each round of fermenting wine takes about 10 days to make. The vinegar is a lot longer to ferment, about three months from start to finish.

Fermenting must

I am always forgetting to take more photos when I work by myself – does anyone else just find sometimes they look up to find hours have passed by, and the job is now done?

…and the apple cider vinegar.

The vinegar must is glugging away contentedly in its demijohn. Sometimes in the quiet of night it is very companionable.

I am excited about trying the first batch to clean…stuff. Articles praising the cleaning properties of Apple Cider Vinegar (or ACV) are very common and adding this to my repertoire of ‘things I don’t have to buy at the store’ would be great, providing ACV works as advertised.

The vinegar is a great one to make at this time of year due to the apple glut, because you can save the peels and scraps from other large-scale apple cookups such as making fruit leather and it will all ferment away merrily together!