Making Honey Vinegar.

Southland Times, Issue 9574, 20 July 1887, Page 4

Making Honey Vinegar.

A contributor to 'Gleanings in Bee Culture writes aa follows : — 'We make several barrels of vinegar every year, and sell it to the folks in town at twenty-five cents, per gallon, and have had no trouble so far to sell all we had. The demand is increasing every year. It takes 21bi of honey to make a gallon of vinegat, and two years' time to make. We make the moat of ours out of refuse honey, or honey that we cannot use fot any other purpose, and would otherwise be lost or waited. We retail a large quantity of honey ; and when tho honey is candied there will be a considerable quantity left sticking to the bides of the barrels. We always waih out all the barrels we expect to use again. The first washing that takes off tbe honey we put in the vinegar. It is clean; it is nothing but honey and .water. Then, again, when we are extracting honey we have a box with a wire-cloth bottom which we set over a barrel that has the upper head out; Into this box we put what cappings we have to drain out the honey. In twenty-four hours we empty those cappings into a barrel that haa some water in it, to soak out what honey remains straining them onoe or twice a day. The barrel will hold what cappings we get in a week. About once a week we strain out the water and put it in the vinegar and melt the cappings into wax, bo there is nothing lost. Again there is always moro or less hoaey that can be made into good vinegar tbat is Dot just fit to sell for nice honey. It that way it is saved. To know when the water is sweet enough for the vinegar, put in a good fresh egg, and make the water sweet enough to float the egg so that there will be a patch of the shell out of the water about as big as a shilling, then it is about right. We keep ours standing in barrels, with one held out, to give it air ; for air it must bave to make vinegar. Tie a square yard of cheese-cloth over the top of the barrel, to keep out dirt or flies and other insect*. Keep under cover out of the rain in a dry, airy place. Either in the autumn or spring we find some that is fit for sile. We take it into onr dwelling-house cellar and put it into our retailing barrels, which we keep there for the purpose, I have been thinking of late whether it would not be a good plan to make all our cheap honey into vinegar ; but I don't know how much it could be sold for wholesale. It may be that we can do something *in this direction to relieve the market of our low-priced honey. Honey is getting to be so plentiful and cheap that we must turn it into every channel tbat will take it.'