Scrappy Vinegar

Learn how to turn simple fruit scraps into liquid gold! With only a couple ingredients and a little time, you can make a delicious, versatile, and healthful vinegar right in your kitchen! And one of the best parts, you can do this with the scraps you may otherwise throw away (or hopefully compost).

Today I am showing a batch made with the scraps from an apple pie but another way I often accumulate scraps for vinegar making is by taking the cores from my kids apples and adding them to a gallon zip top bag in the freezer until its full. when the bag is full, it's time to make a gallon of vinegar! When I do this, I do try to add 1 fresh apple or at least the peels from one, to get the naturally occurring yeast from the fresh apple but that is not strictly necessary.

The process is so simple, once you add this to your routine you will wonder why you haven’t always made your own vinegar!

Supplies:

• Glass or Ceramic jar (food grade plastic could also work but it isn’t my first choice).

• Coffee Filter or Cloth Napkin to cover your jar.

• Rubber Band or tie of some sort.

• Peels/Cores from some apples or pears (or possible other fruit scraps you have on hand, maybe peach skins from a canning party?)

• Water (filtered water without chlorine or fluoride as those will interfere with the fermentation process).

• Optionally but preferred… a little natural sweetener, such as cane or beet sugar, molasses, date syrup, maple syrup, coconut sugar… and some raw vinegar to get things off to a great start!

Procedure:

Add your fruit scraps to a clean jar filling your jar between 3/4 to within 2 inches of the top of the jar. Cover with water. Add sweetener of choice if you are using, for a 1/2 gallon id say between 2 tbsp and 1/4 cup. Add a splash of vinegar from a previous batch or raw ACV from the store. Mix it all together, cover with your coffee filter or cloth napkin and rubber band. Set this somewhere room temperature to ferment for a couple weeks and stir it every day to keep the scraps saturated and prevent mold during this step!

In a couple weeks, strain out the fruit scraps, recover with the cloth napkin or coffee filter and let it ferment for another couple weeks, you don’t need to stir or mess with it at all during this stage.

Now you can put a tight fitting lid on and put your vinegar into storage! Enjoy!