If you used sugar water and bread yeast in a plastic bag under your sink...

Could you use the alcohol as a cleaning product, or would it have to turn to vinegar first?

No. You add milk and have an Amish sourdough starter.

Which makes an excellent stainless Steel cleaner.

Let's find out!

Hmmm... I've used ketchup and cigarette ash to polish brass, but never heard of sourdough starter for stainless steel.

Well the alcohol produced by that means would probably not be stong enough to give any cleaning benefits without distilling it to a stonger product. And I don't know if the same would be the case with letting it turn to vinegar. It too would probably need to be concentrated to a level that would be acidic enough to give you any cleaning benefits.

Hmmm, looks like White/Distilled vinegar comes from souring distilled alcohol, that's why it's strong enough to clean things.

Distilled vinegar

The term "distilled vinegar" is somewhat of a misnomer, because it is not produced by the distillation of vinegar, but rather, by the fermentation of distilled alcohol. The fermentate is then diluted to produce a colorless solution of about 5% to 8% acetic acid in water, with a pH of about 2.4. This is variously known as distilled spirit or "virgin" vinegar,[6] or white vinegar, and is used for medicinal, laboratory, and cleaning purposes, as well as in cooking, baking, meat preservation, and pickling.[7] The most common starting material in some regions, because of its low cost, is malt. In the United States, corn (maize) is the usual starting ingredient for most distilled vinegars, such as Heinz.[8]

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So it doesn't appear that straight hooch alcohol would be strong enough to be used as a cleanser, unless you took it a step or two higher by distilling it.

Interesting question.

Now I wonder if you could freeze concentrate it a couple times to get it strong enough to have any use.

CreamyGoodness said:

Hmmm... I've used ketchup and cigarette ash to polish brass, but never heard of sourdough starter for stainless steel.

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It's works amazingly well.

You smear it on and let it set for a while.

Eventually, your wife will see it, become furious, and clean it off.

Whalah. The stainless steels are spotless again.

I do recall however, on the second season of that silly survivalist reality show, "The Colony" the group's medical doctor, who was also a homebrewer did make medicinal grade alcohol by fermenting a sugar wash with bread yeast then double or triple distilling it. He used it as an antiseptic, and they ran a motor or generator or something off it as well.

I've learned something here today.

what? That sometimes you ask really good questions?

Tee hee. If one has to go to the lengths to distill or concentrate, it might not be worth it timewise. I just thought it would be cool to make the stuff and not have to DRINK it for it to be useful...

CreamyGoodness said:

I've learned something here today.

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Dogs don't lay eggs?

Put okra in it! Everyone knows how well your last okra experiment turned out!

I'm wonder how it would go with a little lemon. Lemon is a good cleaner as well.






















It makes excellent flavoring too.

CreamyGoodness said:

Tee hee. If one has to go to the lengths to distill or concentrate, it might not be worth it timewise. I just thought it would be cool to make the stuff and not have to DRINK it for it to be useful...

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Your not getting rid of the okra mead that easy , you still need to enter it in a competition first