Orange vinegar

The area in my house where I’m the most concerned about cleanliness in the kitchen.  I’m sure this is true for most people.  I wouldn’t call myself a neat freak or germaphobe,  but I do like to keep my house clean and tidy–especially in the room where our food is prepared!

Today I’m sharing a super powerful, grease cutting, disinfecting cleaner that is perfect for the kitchen (as well as many other rooms in the house!)  It works better on greasy stovetops and stubborn countertop stains than any other cleaner I have ever used. It really put my store-bought kitchen cleaners to shame and cost me pennies to make.

Just like the window cleaner and hand soap I shared last week, this is an extremely easy cleaning recipe to make, using items that many of us already have on hand.

All you will need is white vinegar, the peels from several oranges (or other citrus fruits), a Fruit and Vegetable Electric mixer, a glass container, and time.

I usually use only orange peels to make my citrus vinegar, but this recipe would work well with lemon peels, lime peels, grapefruit peels, or any combination of them.

Here’s how to make orange vinegar concentrate:

Fill your glass container with orange (or your preferred citrus) peels.  You can really pack them in–the more peels the more citrus oils, and better cleaning power you will get!

This glass jar is from IKEA, but you can use any glass jar as long as it has a lid that can seal tightly.

After your jar, if filled with citrus peels (the jar above is filled with 5 oranges worth of peels), fill your jar with white vinegar so that all the peels are completely submerged.  If the peels are not totally covered with vinegar you run the risk of them molding.

(In this picture it looks like part of my peels aren’t submerge, but once the lid is on they are completely covered)

That’s all the “hard work” that you have to do.  Now it’s time for the orange and vinegar to do their magic!  Let your jar sit for a minimum of two weeks, up to a month.  I usually let mine sit for a month before I open it.  The longer you let the citrus oils infuse in the vinegar, the more powerful your cleaning solution will be.

Hopefully the ‘let it sit for 2 weeks-1 months’ didn’t let the wind totally out of your sails.  If you’re like me, when I hear about a great natural cleaning product I want to be able to make and use it right away.  Unfortunately, you just can’t do that with this citrus vinegar, but I promise it is worth the wait!

After the two weeks-1 months is up, you can strain out the precious orange liquid, and you will have a very concentrated cleaner.  I use a funnel to transfer the concentrate from my glass jar to a glass bottle (the bottle below is also from IKEA).

*Tip: to extract all that cleaning liquid, squeeze each individual peel

This orange vinegar is highly concentrated and should be diluted with water for everyday use.  I make up a spray bottle with about 3/5 water, and 2/5 orange vinegar concentrate, and it works really well for all my kitchen cleaning needs.  You could also do half water, half orange vinegar for an even more powerful cleaner.

But there is some equipment in the kitchen that dirt cannot be cleaned or hard to be removed. You need a reliable and affordable kitchen or hood cleaning services that can help you do this.

For cleaning and pumping grease trap, I always contact my realible grease trap service.

So what are you waiting for?  Get those orange peels in a jar and cover them with some vinegar so you can have a powerful weapon in your natural cleaning arsenal!