# Apple Cider vinegar with "mother" question.



## Xerocles (Jan 24, 2020)

It's cold and raining and I'm stuck inside. On such days my mind often muses about things even MORE strange than usual.
I put ACV into my animal's water. Why? I don't have a clue. But it seems such a universal practice, and is so inexpensive, then why NOT? Oh, I've done _some_ research, but haven't really seen much scientifically significant....mostly anecdotal. BUT I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT.  Please don't explain the benefits. I'm sold. I'm on board.
My question is about pricing. None of it is cost prohibitive. But ACV with the "mother" is twice (sometimes more) expensive than the other. Why? Is the "motherless" variety substandard because it is lacking in a mother's love? Or is this a case, like when the country went from leaded gasoline to unleaded? Process less, add less additives, less work, but we're gonna charge more 'cause we can? I mean. You make vinegar from apples. Some you filter so it's nice and clear. More labor, but it looks good. Some you just bottle with the sludge still in. Less work. So you charge more? I understand there are some potential nutrients in the sludge, but still...it doesn't cost more $ or time to leave it in. In fact, it decreases the expense of disposing of the leftover sludge.
So. Any of you smarter-than-me ppl out there who can explain why less than an ounce of "waste" in a gallon of vinegar costs double the price of a gallon of nice clear filtered vinegar?


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## Baymule (Jan 24, 2020)

Marketing. Plain and simple. Marketing. Want a gallon of the stuff for cheap? Buy a clear filtered gallon, heck-fire, buy two. Then get one of those rinky dinky cloudy bottles. Pour a cup out of each gallon. Shake up the cloudy stuff, pour one cup in each gallon. Leave the cap off, put a paper towel over each gallon jug opening, rubber band it down or you can twist a bread tie around it. See? There’s a reason why we instinctively hoard those things! Leave at room temperature for a few days, slap on the cap. It will make more of the mother, father and the three bears with their sidekicks, the three little pigs. Whoop. Done. Personally I buy the clear stuff. I don’t want cloudy pickles. Hahahaha!


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## Xerocles (Jan 24, 2020)

Baymule said:


> Personally I buy the clear stuff. I don’t want cloudy pickles. Hahahaha!


Ok. Here I go highjacking my own thread. But. You use apple cider vinegar for pickling? I always use distilled for pickling. First because my main pickling is for eggs and clear is more aesthetically pleasing, and second, because I used ACV once because I was out of distilled.....and the eggs LITERALLY fell apart after 5 days.
I have a friend who drinks....a lot. Whenever I go to visit, I always stop and buy a jar of dill pickles. We end up doing (cheap) vodka shots, which I follow with half shots of pickle juice (NOT much of a drinker). Kills the burn of the cheap vodka, and tastes pretty good. But, ACV is supposedly better for us than distilled. So. I should start making my own pickles with ACV and saving the white vinegar for cleaning?


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## Beekissed (Jan 24, 2020)

I'm with Bay....I just make more mother vinegar in jugs without and that can go on indefinitely.  Just keep pouring your sludge/mother into new jugs of cheaper vinegar as your old jug gets low.


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## Xerocles (Jan 24, 2020)

You guys are so smart. Don't know why I didn't think of that. YES I DO. It's because I never knew that the mother was "alive" and could reproduce itself. I just thought it was leftover apple "stuff" (like the residue at the bottom of a bag of chips).
Why doesn't somebody start a permanent thread entitled "stuff you never knew you didn't know". I'd read it regularly!


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## Baymule (Jan 24, 2020)

Because we know this stuff and we figure you know it too. We don’t know that you don’t know, so now you know.


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## Xerocles (Jan 24, 2020)

Baymule said:


> Because we know this stuff and we figure you know it too. We don’t know that you don’t know, so now you know.


I know.


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## JHP Homestead (Jan 24, 2020)

I’ve made ACV with the mother from frozen apple juice too (at least I’m assuming it was legit, I don’t drink it so I didn’t taste it, but it looked and smelled like ACV should). 

Just mix up the apple juice and add a glug of the mother and let it sit with a cheesecloth over the top for a while, like Bay said.


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