Fruit Scrap Vinegar!

What a fascinating and amazing process! A few fruit scraps became 3 cups of beautiful and truly delicious fruity vinegar, with next to no active effort.

In the round bottle above is my pineapple vinegar, my first try, from Sandor Katz's book, 'Wild Fermentation'--(thanks for the recommendation, Linds!) Here's the process:

After eating a fresh pineapple, chop up the peel and put it in a glass or plastic bowl. Dissolve ¼ cup sugar in 1 quart of water and pour over the peel. Stir, cover with a cloth, and set aside. Stir occasionally—or not! You could weight the fruit with a plate if you like. In a day or so, wild yeast will begin to work on the sugars and you will see foaming as the yeast produces alcohol--it’s becoming wine. In a week or so, foaming will subside, and wild bacteria will begin to make the alcohol into acid, producing vinegar. You can strain out the fruit at this point. Let it mature for a couple of weeks in the bowl, covered by a cloth. You have pineapple vinegar!

The vinegar is rather mild and has a lovely, amber color and a definite, delicious pineapple aroma and flavor. I looked forward to watching the process day by day--it was fascinating! I do abhor waste, so the whole idea of using odd bits makes me very happy!

In the tall bottle is my next attempt, strawberry vinegar. After our recent family reunion, we ended up with several cups of rather iffy strawberries--not spoiled, just not in prime condition--so we crushed the fruit and started the vinegar process with them. It's just finishing up, and the vinegar is a lovely rosy color, with a nice strawberry aroma and flavor. We ended up again with about 3 cups.

Now I'm wondering. . .what next? My neighbor's apricots are almost ripe. Plums are coming along, then grapes. . .apple peels for sure. . .