Make your own apple cider vinegar from scrap apples!
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 gallon water (4 litres)
- Apple peels and cores
Instructions
- Collect your apple peelings and put them in a gallon glass jar/container. Those large pickle jars from Costco, or from the thrift store, work perfectly. Even a large glass cookie jar will work.
- Once your jar is filled with peelings, cover it with a water/sugar syrup made from 1 quart of boiling water with 1 cup of white sugar dissolved in it. Your peels might float a bit. Some people weight it down with something so they don’t float. I don’t bother.
- Set your jar in a cool, dark-ish location (I used my laundry room) and cover the jar with cheese cloth and an elastic, making sure it is thick enough that fruit flies won’t get in. Because they will try!
- Stir once a day for 1 week.
- After a week, strain the apple peels through cheese cloth and allow to drain over a bowl overnight, to collect the juice. Then give the cheese cloth a good squeeze, and feed the apple peels to the chickens/pigs.
- Pour the strained juice back into the jar and cover with cheese cloth again.
- Stir once a day.
- Store in a cool location out of direct light for 6 weeks or until it tastes as strong as you’d like it.
- Bottle and store in your pantry or fridge indefinitely. Enjoy!
Notes
If you notice mold on your apple cider vinegar at any stage, skim it off and keep going. I have never experienced mold growth but have read that it can happen.
Some people weight their apple peels down during the first week so no apple peels are exposed to air. They have a tendency to float. You can do this if you like, but as long as you stir it once a day I don’t think it is necessary, and I never bother.
Try this with other fruit peels! Peach and pear make a lovely, delicate vinegar.
