Where Do I Find Virgin White Vinegar?

[johnmsch]

Time for the yearly flush of my Rinnai tankless water heater. The recommendation is to use "virgin, food-grade, white vinegar". I'm trying to find it locally (metro Atlanta area), but once again, no one seems to carry it. The past couple of times I did the flush, I had to order it, but the shipping cost for the 4 gallons is more than the vinegar itself.

None of the "health food" stores carry it, and in fact, the manager at Harry's said he's never even heard of it. Just talked to a manager at my local Publix, and he said that they can't even order it, since the would have to have a minimum order of a pallet. All I can find locally is standard distilled vinegar, which I believe is not nearly as potent as the virgin grade.

What am I missing here? Is there some obvious place I can get this that I haven't thought of?

Thanks

 

[havasu]

I believe they are only referring to virgin (unused) white distilled vinegar, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Mr_David]

Basically they are having you use a very mild acid to wash out the core.
Check the bottle for an intact safety seal. If seal is intact, you got yourself some virgin vinegar.

 

[frodo]

I was disappointed after reading the title to this thread.......

 

[johnmsch]

From what I've been reading, there is a significant difference in the acidic content between distilled and virgin vinegar.

Also been reading about a product called Flow-Aide. Looks like some plumbers use that for flushing tankless water heaters. Just sent an email to Rinnai asking if they approve the use of that product. Found one other manufacturer (I think it was Noritz) that does recommend that product.

BTW frodo, I was smiling as I typed the title of this thread...

 

[Lurker]

Late to the show, I know, but for others to come here looking for info

A couple of sites I found to figure this out:
en.wikipedia.org

www.differencebetween.net

Somewhere, I couldn't find it again, I found that Virgin means it is made from plant material. Some vinegar is made from petroleum products but this can not be called virgin.

White and Distilled are the same thing.

Food grade is what you'd use for cooking. This is not the "cleaning" vinegar that can be found.

So this is simply saying common vinegar from the grocery store. Thinking about it this makes sense. We're cleaning the pipes that the water we drink and clean in passes through. To be safe you wouldn't want to use anything too strong in case some didn't get rinsed out for some reason.

 

[johnmsch]

Been just using the distilled white vinegar from my local warehouse club. It comes in 1.33 gallon jugs, so 3 of those works out perfectly for flushing with a 5-gallon bucket. Comparing how it looks when I start the flush, to how it looks when I'm done, it does appear that its working.

I did eventually hear back from Rinnai and they only recommend using the vinegar or diluted citric acid, per their user manual. Sounds like they won't recommend the Flow-Aide only because they haven't tested it themselves.

 

[JoeWest]

I was disappointed after reading the title to this thread.......

Haha... I always squirt my new girlfriends with a little vinegar to see if they yipe. That's what I thought virgin vinegar was for.