Homemade Red Wine Vinegar Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients in red wine vinegar? ›

While balsamic vinegar is made with unfermented grape juice left to age for over a decade, red wine vinegar begins with grape-based wine. The easiest way to make red wine vinegar (or simply red vinegar) at home is to mix red wine with raw, unpasteurized vinegar.

Stir together wine and vinegar in a 2-cup glass jar. Cover jar with a double layer of cheesecloth; wrap a rubber band around the rim to secure. Store in a dark place at room temperature until mixture no longer tastes like raw alcohol, about 8 weeks. (It's OK if sediment forms on surface of liquid or sides of jar.)

Vinegar mother is just bacteria that feeds on alcoholic liquids, and the fact that one developed in your vinegar just means that there were some sugars or alcohol that weren't completely fermented in the vinegar process.

You should begin to smell vinegar after a few weeks, and can taste it every week or so to monitor the fermentation. After about 2 months, when the alcohol has acidified, or when a taste of the vinegar makes your mouth pucker, it's ready to strain and bottle. (You can save the mother to begin a new batch.)

Thoroughly mash fruit, add four crushed Campden tablets, cover with cheesecloth and allow container to stand four hours at room temperature. Add 10 cups sugar syrup, lemon juice, tea and yeast and allow seven days to ferment at a temperature between 60-70º F, stirring thoroughly twice daily.

How to store it. As long as your red wine vinegar is in a glass bottle and tightly closed, it should last indefinitely without any risk of spoilage or foodborne illness. You can store it in a cool, dark place to preserve the quality if you like, but refrigerating it is unnecessary (2).

1 tablespoon red wine + 3 Tablespoons vinegar = 4 tablespoons = 1/4 c. Thanks so much for posting this. They charge ridiculous prices for red wine vinegar in the supermarkets. And this tastes 1000% better.

While vinegar making may be as old as alcoholic brewing, the first documented evidence of vinegar making and use was by the ancient Babylonians around 3000 BC. They primarily made vinegar from dates, figs, and beer and used it for both culinary and medicinal purposes. Traces of it also have been found in Egyptian urns.

Can red wine vinegar go bad? ›

Acetic acid kills bacteria and fungi, so red wine vinegar doesn't go bad in the sense of being dangerous to drink. Red wine vinegar will look and taste its best if you use it within 2 to 3 years from the time you buy it.

Yes, it won't produce anything toxic. They'll simply neutralize one another, and carbon dioxide will be released. It's a useful way to make baked goods rise or to unclog a drain (put baking soda down the drain with a little hot water, then pour in some vinegar.)

The only real side effect from leaving vinegar to its own devices is that its acidity will gradually decrease over time, making it less potent. This is why a "best by" date can be found on the bottle, but it's still perfectly fine long past that — it isn't an "expiration date," by any means. Vinegar does not expire.

The easiest way to make your own wine vinegar is to leave an open, 3/4-full bottle of wine in a warm place for a couple of weeks. It's really that simple—the natural oxidation process will do all of the work. The only issue you may encounter is fruit flies.

Making the Vinegar

“The higher the sugars and alcohol, the higher the acetic acid will be in your vinegar, so if you want a nice sharp wine vinegar for pickling or condiments, then a high-sugar wine like a riesling is great,” says Emde.

A common ingredient in many snacks, condiments, and recipes, vinegar products contain varying levels of sulfites. Wine vinegars contain between 50 and 100 ppm of sulfites, cider vinegars between 10 and 50, and malt vinegar less than 10.

Red wine vinegar is loaded with healthy nutrients, including several key vitamins, minerals, and some iron and potassium. Vinegar has been found to help slow the absorption of sugar from a meal into the bloodstream, which suggests that it has real potential to help people with diabetes.

Red wine vinegar has a number of benefits, including lower blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol. As it's derived from red wine, it also boasts a number of antioxidants. Drinking or using this vinegar in moderation is safe but could be harmful if taken in excess or alongside certain medications.

Possibly a tiny amount. Red wine vinegar, like all wine vinegars, is made from wine. Bacteria eat away at the wine and transform it into vinegar. At the end of the vinegar fermentation process there may be a small amount of residual alcohol - think 0.1% or 0.2% ABV (alcohol by volume).