Fruit peel vinegar
This fruit peel vinegar recipe is a great way to use up fruit peels and cores which would otherwise be discarded. Victoria uses apple and pear peelings but pineapple or melon skins work equally well. It may seem a little daunting, but making your own vinegar is very satisfying and, with a little patience, very easy to do! Check out Victoria's other recipes which make the most of peels and skins here.
Ingredients
- 500g of fruit peelings, a mix of apple, pear, pineapple, melon or anything else you have to hand, cut into small pieces
- 80g of sugar
- 140ml of vinegar, containing a live mother, either homemade or shop-bought
Equipment
- 2L Kilner jar
Method
1
Put the fruit peel and sugar in a clean 2-litre Kilner jar, then add enough water to cover the peel
2
Add the vinegar and drape a square of muslin over the top of the jar, then secure it with string or an elastic band
3
Stir the mixture with a clean spoon once a day for a week, by which point the fruit skins will start to ferment
4
Leave the fruit to ferment for another week, stirring every now and then. Small bubbles should appear in the liquid as the fermented sugars convert to ethanol and release carbon dioxide
5
After these 2 weeks, put a fine sieve over a large jug and strain the liquid, discarding the fruit pieces. Put the liquid back into the jar, cover the top with the muslin again and leave it to ferment into vinegar
6
Taste the vinegar for acidity after 4 weeks (it could take up to 3 months to fully convert). Once tart enough, strain out the 'mother' and bottle the vinegar, reserving the mother for another use. The vinegar can be used immediately, or, for a more mellow flavour, aged in the bottle; there is no tidy best before date here, but it can be safely kept for at least a year
7
Keep the mother to make new batches of vinegar, or gift it as a vinegar starter
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Fruit peel vinegar
