DIY: Citrus Vinegar

In my love of all things cheap, I recently did a little research into making homemade cleaners.  One common ingredient in nearly every recipe I encountered was vinegar.  Vinegar is basically fruit or grain starch that has fermented into an acid, particularly acetic acid.  Commercially produced vinegar is 5% acetic acid.  As an acid, vinegar has great cleansing properties, while still being all-natural and safe for the entire family, as well as the environment.  If your little Houdini gets into this cleaning product, she can guzzle away. 

According to the Vinegar Works Wonders site, vinegar has been prized for generations for its usefulness as a stain remover, mildew eliminator, soap scum dissolver, chrome polisher, lime descaler, fabric softener, room deodorizer and as an unclogging agent.  Here is an actual lab study comparing the effectiveness of six alternative (natural) cleaners to commercial cleaners.  Vinegar definitely holds it own.

While that makes it a great all-in-one natural cleaner, I personally find vinegar obnoxiously pungent, so I did a little research...ya know, googled "mask vinegar smell" and came up with this lovely project.



This is super simple, but I was very pleased with the end product.

• Save your lemon and orange rinds in the refrigerator for a couple days until you have enough to loosely fill a quart canning jar (more or less depending on how much you want to make!)  
• Fill clean jar with rinds.
• Add white vinegar to completely fill quart jar.
• Secure jar with metal lid and ring or plastic lid.
• Shake daily for two weeks. Don't worry about refrigerating--the acid content prohibits spoilage or mold growth.
• After two weeks, the vinegar will be citrus-infused.  Remove and discard the rinds.
• The pungency will be replaced with a sweet citrus odor.  Use in your favorite all-purpose cleaner recipe (got one coming up soon)! 

I thought you might enjoy this outtake...