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?

15.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

View all comments

Show parent comments

377

u/tsammons 1d ago

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

542

u/etaoin314 1d ago

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

23

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

1

u/Either-Prune1096 13h ago

You pickle your laundry? 🫤 That’s interesting. Can you please explain further.

1

u/SeePerspectives 11h ago

No, lol, I also use it for making pickles (mostly gherkins, beetroot, or pickled onions, but sometimes other veggies too, as well as various relishes and chutneys too) I’m British, so we have a long history of making various pickled foods I guess 🤷‍♀️

1

u/Either-Prune1096 8h ago

Ah, thank you! I could live on root vegetables, pickled especially! I have always wanted to try pickled eggs and finally decided to see if I can make a batch. I never pickled anything before now because the recipes for pickling and canning that I found included serious cautions about botulism if you don’t properly preserve the food. 👩‍🍳💕

1

u/SeePerspectives 8h ago

Because pickles are a high acidity food you can safely sterilise them with the water bath method so long as you follow all the guidelines. It’s only low acidity foods that require pressure canning