Kirsten K Shockey - Homebrewed Vinegar: How to Ferment 60 Delicious Varieties: Including Carrot-Ginger, Beet, Brown Banana, Pineapple, Corncob, Honey, and Apple Cider Vinegar

As scientifically rigorous as it is historically rich. Kirsten Shockeys elixirs will satisfy curious chefs, home cooks, gardeners, and citizen scientists.

Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns and author of The Third Plate

To call this a fantastically researched, mind-blowingly comprehensive, and very approachable book is an understatement... with Kirsten Shockey as your guide youll be able to make any vinegar that your mind can dream up.

Jeremy Umansky, larder master, wild food forager, owner of Larder Delicatessen & Bakery, and coauthor of Koji Alchemy

This is what was missing from the vinegar world... Kirsten Shockey shows us that theres no limit to what vinegar has to offer.

Michael Harlan Turkell, author of Acid Trip and host of Heritage Radio Networks The Food Seen and Food52s Burnt Toast

Shockey continues her work of helping us understand and harness the power of fermentation... this book goes into the canon immediately.

Harry Rosenblum, author of Vinegar Revival and cofounder of The Brooklyn Kitchen

Comprehensive and well researched... an approachable guide to the science and magical alchemy of vinegar making.

Sarah Owens, author of Sourdough

Shockey continues to inspire and amaze... she will teach you how to make quality vinegar but will also fill you with wonder about an ingredient you have taken for granted.

Meredith Leigh, author of The Ethical Meat Handbook and Pure Charcuterie

The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment.

Edited by Carleen Madigan

Art direction and book design by Carolyn Eckert

Text production by Erin Dawson

Indexed by Christine R. Lindemer, Boston Road Communications

Cover and interior photography by Carmen Troesser

Additional interior photography by Caroline Attwood/Unsplash, ; Narong KHUEANKAEW/iStock.com

Photo styling by Carmen Troesser

Text 2021 by Kirsten K. Shockey

Ebook production by Kristy L. MacWilliams

Ebook version 1.0

May 11, 2021

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For Christopher,
through sweet and sour...
and all the bubbling transformations in between.

Fermentation, the ancient practice of transforming something raw into something heady and sour, opens up a whole new galaxy of flavor exploration. I am flavor chaser, so this craft has grabbed me by the heart, soul, and stomach. It has also fed my voracious appetite for knowledge, encouraging me to spiral down wormholes of research, only to emerge with an even more insatiable desire to learn.

In autumn 2014right before my first book, Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes, was publishedI read Fermented Vegetables by Kirsten and Christopher Shockey, flipping from page to page with gusto, exploring untapped flavors and reveling in the Shockeys playful willingness to experiment. Fermentation is an art of patience and curiosity, and although I had been deep in the makers mindset for quite some time (Bar Tartine was often dubbed a living larder), the Shockeys became two of my greatest instructors.

The first thing a good teacher does is demystify a subject, or at least ease you in by explaining the basics before building on them. Kirsten teaches this way. With every book shes written, she distills the science into understandable language before applying the theories to practice. There is a gentleness to her style, making new ideas feel approachable and attainable, while arming readers with the confidence and foundation to experiment, so that they can become makers themselves.

How grand is it to let time and terroir transform ingredients into something wholly different and more dynamic than their fresh counterparts?

Kirsten is the type of maker who only comes along once in a while, caring so deeply about her craft that shes spent a lifetime devoted to it. Not only does she fully connect with the process from soil to plate, but shes made it her lifes work to catalog, refine, and share fermentation methods so that we, too, can create our own electric and layered flavors. Her first books tilt toward the vegetable world, followed by a deep dive that showed her unwavering curiosity for grains, legumes, and koji. Savory pastes and mind-blowing sauces are the results of such tasty trials. Clearly her larder is as boundless as the craft itself.

So it was with sincere delight that I devoured her latest book, Homebrewed Vinegar. Within these pages, Kirsten shares her vast knowledge and love of vinegar, explaining how to make this nose-busting elixir and how to encapsulate flavors within it. Kirsten also explores the ancient wisdom of vinegar as medicine. From shrubs to switchels to oxymels, youre just a sip away from a more balanced self.

Vinegar making, until now, has always felt like a tonic enshrouded in mystery, an indispensable potion deeply revered, yet not fully understood. It is alchemy at its finest; a seemingly magical process of transformation and creation by combining liquid sugarfrom juice to honey waterwith microbes, oxygen, and time. From there the vinegar is just barely attended to. Instead, its left to metamorphosize into something more complex and alluring than its building blocks.