Cider vinegar

Cider vinegar - great for drinks, salad dressings or washing your hair.  And as most people just go and buy it, it must be hard to make, right?  Actually, if you have a good supply of apples in autumn, it's a piece of cake.

Stages of vinegar making - L - R: fresh apple juice, 3 week old fermenting juice, and vinegar with mother (after 1 year)

All you do is juice apples to fill a glass bottle with as much juice as you want.
Cover with a breathable top - cloth or a paper towel. 
Leave in a warm place & shake every day.  You need the oxygen to help the fermentation process.
The liquid will go really fizzy so be careful when you shake it up!

After a few weeks the fermentation will start to slow down and sediment will form at the bottom of the bottle.

Strain the liquid through a cheesecloth to remove the sediment, and leave longer.  Keep shaking the bottle every day until fermentation (the fizzing) stops and the liquid is clearer.  This will be quicker if it's warm, slower if cold.  Mine took about 6 weeks in autumn.  Then just leave it until it's turned to vinegar!  I stored mine in a cupboard during this time.

After about 4 months I noticed that a 'mother' was starting to form in the bottle.  I've just taken this out of the first batch of vinegar I made this time last year, and added it to the new batch that has finished fermenting in the hope it'll help the process...I don't really know, but it's fun experimenting!

The vinegar mother - strained out of last year's batch, about to be added to a new brew.