Apple Cider Vinegar with Mother added to water

[chickengeorgeto]

agree. apple cider starts with a pH of 3.3, and so long as you don't let flies in you will get vinegar no matter the method. ACV has a pH of about 2.5.

Because homemade ACV has an unknown concentration of acidic acid, DO NOT USE HOMADE ACV FOR HOME PICKLING, PRESERVING, OR CANNING. The life you save may be your own.

ACV however is perfectly fine in salad dressings. Acidic acid will also thin eggshells and weakens bones, in fact all vinegars will leach or dissolve calcium, lead, zinc, copper, mercury, and other heavy metals out of metal and some glass (lead crystal for instance) storage containers. This is why you can't buy dill pickles put up in tin cans. Only dispense and store vinegar of any type in 100% glass drinking bowls and storage bottles. You don't want your chickens to become as insane as the Emperors Nero or Caligula do you?

Acidic acid (vinegar) is an antibiotic that keeps foods like cucumbers from decomposing by killing all microscopic life. It will also kill all animal or plant life on Earth if the concentration is high enough. Therefor ACV makes a handy labor saving addition to your chickens drinking water by killing back the green or blue green agley that begins growing in your chickens' water bowls and drinking fountains as soon as you pour out the old water or top up the water already in their water cups with fresh water.

 

[glib]

It is acetic acid, not acidic. But I concur with the gist of this post. I have a lot of brewing experience (wine, beer, hard cider), and I can see that vinegar made from table apples is very weak, but fine for every purpose (except I have no vinegar canning experience, so can't tell you about that). The fix is easy, though. Just add ground crabapples to the mess, and your vinegar will be strong (I have some trees in front of my workplace which are particularly good). Also, vinegar made solely from stronger, heirloom apples is a fine, medium body vinegar as is (I often use Northern Spy, obviously discarded, it would be too expensive. russets are fine too).