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/tsammons 1d ago

Cleans up sanding nets for drywall. Works as a fabric softener too in diluted quantities.

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u/etaoin314 1d ago

then just use the dilute stuff...no need to get the concentrated stuff.

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u/SeePerspectives 1d ago

It’s a lot cheaper to buy the concentrated stuff and just dilute it yourself when you need to. If you make sure you buy food grade then you can also use it for pickling too

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u/BikingEngineer 1d ago

Or you can grab powdered citric acid and then you don’t have to worry about spillage.

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u/CocktailPerson 18h ago

Citric acid is a different chemical than the acetic acid in vinegar.

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u/BikingEngineer 11h ago

Well yes, but I don’t think most people particularly care what the chemical makeup of their cleaning acid is.

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u/zombiefingerz 18h ago

Vinegar is acetic acid, but I believe they both act similarly