Making dried apples ends with a lot of scraps for the compost heap. One of Mr. TellBlast’s relatives suggested I make fruit scrap vinegar and sent this link. Why not make this? I thought. I briefly looked at making my own cider vinegar about 13 years ago, but didn’t because I didn’t get enough information from my Back to Basics book. (But plenty of discussion about hard cider occurred with my homeschool group 😉 In re-reading the blog and the book, the two sources agree about all but the time of fermentation — about one week longer is suggested in the book.
Here’s how my vinegar started:
I used honey and water, having found a pint jar of honey in my basement from 2010. Once I poured the honey water in the jar, I stirred everything and placed fabric and a band on top of the jar.
I looked at the jar about a week later. Since I set it on the top shelf of my dark pantry, I forgot about it and didn’t stir it at all. The volume of fruit decreased a lot. The smell was pleasantly apple-y.
The next day, I thought I ought to remove the apple scraps. Here are two views, before removing the fruit and after.
I just smelled the jar a couple days ago and it was certainly smelling like strong wine. A very interesting and oh so natural process! Today, it smells less like wine and more like vinegar. You can’t see the “mother,” but trust me, a thick layer of fluff is at the bottom of the jar.
I’ve got a couple more weeks of aging before it’ll be ready to use. I’ll keep you updated here, ’cause I know you want to try it yourself once you know how it went for me.
Have you ever made your own vinegar or cider? I’d love to hear about it.
julia