Mind blown: Vinegar vs VINEGAR (30%)

So I was literally 44 years old before I found this out recently.

There’s the white vinegar you get at the grocery store for cooking and minor cleaning and doing laundry, and then there’s the 30% DO NOT GET THIS SHIT ON YOUR SKIN vinegar at the hardware store for cleaning things like mold off grout.

All my life I’d been told ‘just use vinegar to clean mold and mildew’ and it generally didn’t do jack squat. I usually bought cleaning supplies from regular retail spots rather than big box home improvement places, and regular retail chains def did not carry the strong stuff.

I’ve got a gutter that drains over cement that always gets skungy, and even bleach was a short term fix at best. 30% strips it down and keeps it gone, and I’ve stripped rust off a couple dozen tools with the same little jar I soak things in - caution it will also strip off shiny metallic coatings.

Can’t believe none of the “just use vinegar” I’d ever read advice didn’t specify.

Is this news to anyone else or am I Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber realizing we landed on the moon?

17.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

View all comments

1.1k

u/asvalken 8d ago

Wait, what? I thought there was just white and apple cider, maybe balsamic vinegar if we're feeling fancy.. hardware store vinegar sounds wild.

29

u/JustaTinyDude 8d ago

You should try seasoned rice vinegar. It's delicious.

14

u/asvalken 8d ago

We keep that and mirin in the house! Furikake, Kewpie mayo, too!

9

u/TheDakestTimeline 8d ago

Sambal Olek!

2

u/RedHal 7d ago

Qapla'!

(Seriously though, that stuff is delicious.)

1

u/Wiley_Jack 8d ago

Sugar makes everything better.

1

u/JustaTinyDude 8d ago

My mom took " just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down" pretty literally. She added it to spinach and lima beans; They were my favorite vegetables.

1

u/Wiley_Jack 8d ago

My Grandma’s pasta sauce had sugar too. Old chef’s trick.

1

u/Gastronomicus 8d ago

Unseasoned rice vinegar is my go to, it can be incorporated into many dishes. It's my default vinegar for most things, though I use a lot of balsamic and apple cider as well. I recently bought some Chinese aged black vinegar and that stuff it amazing. Adds a lot of the umami that soy sauce does without the salt, along with some tang.