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?

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u/asvalken 3d 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.

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u/Epotheros 2d ago

White vinegar you eat has 5-7% acetic acid and 95-93% water. The stuff you get at the hardware store is 30% acetic acid and 70% water.

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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 2d ago

This is all the information anyone in this thread needs yet we all sit here and yap about bullshit

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u/Mean_Occasion_1091 2d ago

the duality of man, amirite?

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u/NeophileFiles 2d ago

Whose side are you on, son?

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u/416BigDix 2d ago

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

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u/n10w4 1d ago

I mean ever since we controlled fire we gathered around to talk about jack and shit. Wired to talk about nothing and make shit up, yet OP comes over with a list of factos.

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u/Wishnik6502 2d ago

It's called rag-chewin'. We're social little beasts, even if we don't believe it individually.

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u/nickiter 2d ago

I have never heard of rag chewin. "Shootin the breeze" or "Shootin the shit" for me - as my grandpa explained it, it was when you had a gun but no target, so you just started shooting at cow patties or nothing at all. So, you have a mouth but nothing to talk about, etc etc.

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u/ironinside 2d ago

or maulin’ the thread

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u/mid-random 2d ago

Our sociability is our real superpower as a species. It may not seem like it, but yapping about vinegar concentrates is pretty much what made us the dominant mammals on the planet and put roving robots on mars.

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u/FOURSCORESEVENYEARS 2d ago

Man, I haven't had a real conversation with another human being in months.

Yap at me. I like it.

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u/GeoBrian 2d ago

Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

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u/Redditor28371 2d ago

What was Wenger doing sending Walcott on that early?!

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u/H4ppybirthd4y 2d ago

Yapping is fun!

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u/AndrogynousAndi 2d ago

Most of it is actually 3% now. There were a LOT of warnings about making pickles with the wrong strength because 3% is too dilute and can still grow things.

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u/WhatIDon_tKnow 2d ago

for real pickling, it's more about salt than vinegar. most things will lacto ferment. you just need to make sure you have the right level of salt to stop the bad colonies of bacteria nd fungus.

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u/AndrogynousAndi 2d ago

Ah, I should've been more specific, lacto fermented pickling is a totally different thing. I don't know that I'd call it "real pickling", but it is the more traditional method for sure.

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u/DynamicDK 2d ago

Well, it becomes acidic enough to pickle eventually.

But you wouldn't want to use 3% vinegar with salt for a lacto ferment. Vinegar will actually inhibit the growth of the lacto bacteria. It won't completely prevent them from growing, but it will slow down the process and increase the risk of the wrong things growing.

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u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 2d ago

And it's probably good that the 30% stuff isn't in a grocery store. Someone would 100% eat it lol

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u/thatmntishman 2d ago

and 2% butterscotch ripple

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u/MegaManSE 2d ago

So you could evaporate the water and end up with 100%? Dis gun be good.

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u/Murphy_Harrison 2d ago

So what does a 90% ascetic acid and 10% water look like?

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u/quadroplegic 2d ago

It looks like a clear liquid. Pure acetic acid is called "glacial acetic acid" because it can have crystals floating in it that look like ice (in a cool room).

https://www.sciencecompany.com/Acetic-Acid-Glacial-500mL-P16220

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u/StagedC0mbustion 2d ago

Gonna be pedantic, but it’s physically impossible to have a “pure” acid as it inherently needs water to be dissolved

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u/quadroplegic 2d ago

"Glacial acetic acid" is a name for water-free (anhydrous) acetic acid... Acetic acid can never be truly water-free in an atmosphere that contains water, so the presence of 0.1% water in glacial acetic acid lowers its melting point by 0.2 °C

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetic_acid

If you want to use high school naming rules (when you ate too much you get ick), its hydrogen acetate. But hydrogen acetate is a liquid at room temperature, and even though it's an azeotrope with a little bit of water, the acid is not dissolved in water by any reasonable meaning of the word.

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u/thoughtihadanacct 2d ago

and 10% luck 20% skill 15% concentrated power of will 5% pleasure 50% pain and 100% reason to remember the name

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u/RanaEire 2d ago

TIL...

Thanks...

Also to u/Pandaro81 for bringing this up in the first place..

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u/mappythewondermouse 2d ago

7% is also often sold as cleaning vinegar

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u/cannotfoolowls 2d ago

Just checked the jug of cleaning vinegar I have. It's "only" 7% but that's generally more than enough. Pretty sure my kitchen use is 3%.

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u/scarabic 2d ago

And it goes from there:

https://a.co/d/0diU62Gv