Vinegar and chemistry (cooking, fermentation)
Welp, just litmus strips and a refractometer are far from sufficient to understand vinegar's acidity content or wine's alcohol level. Need the hydrometer AND a titration system as well.
Cheese cloth is slightly superior to coffee filters in filtering because you can can squeeze out the juice from the stronger cheese cloth. So that seems like a useful investment that i will use again with jelly and sauces as well as this vinegar trip,
I bought glass straws to pull samples up, sort of like a "wine thief". "I'm getting a refractometer instead of a hydrometer," (which needs a moderately large volume to test bouyancy in), so i just need something to get little samples for the litmus and the refractometer. "I'll get a glass straw and i can put my finger over the end to control the sample." That does work. I was horrified, though, at the "buy glass straws to reduce plastic" sales pitch for the straws and the many many layers of plastic it was delivered in.
So the vinegar i am making is now significantly more expensive, and i still can't tell if it's acidic enough to be used for preserves. It turns out the acidity of some complex fluid like vinegar is not easily determined from the pH. That, and getting 0-14 pH strips leaves me squinting at the subtle color differences between a pH of 3 and 4 and 5. There are, i now see, pH strips for measuring just acids: maybe i'll invest in that someday. First, gotta use the vinegar i've made.
Cheese cloth is slightly superior to coffee filters in filtering because you can can squeeze out the juice from the stronger cheese cloth. So that seems like a useful investment that i will use again with jelly and sauces as well as this vinegar trip,
I bought glass straws to pull samples up, sort of like a "wine thief". "I'm getting a refractometer instead of a hydrometer," (which needs a moderately large volume to test bouyancy in), so i just need something to get little samples for the litmus and the refractometer. "I'll get a glass straw and i can put my finger over the end to control the sample." That does work. I was horrified, though, at the "buy glass straws to reduce plastic" sales pitch for the straws and the many many layers of plastic it was delivered in.
So the vinegar i am making is now significantly more expensive, and i still can't tell if it's acidic enough to be used for preserves. It turns out the acidity of some complex fluid like vinegar is not easily determined from the pH. That, and getting 0-14 pH strips leaves me squinting at the subtle color differences between a pH of 3 and 4 and 5. There are, i now see, pH strips for measuring just acids: maybe i'll invest in that someday. First, gotta use the vinegar i've made.