Fruit scrap vinegar recipe

Ingredients

• 1 quart (944 ml) distilled water
• ¼ cup (63 g) raw turbinado sugar
• 1 pound (453 g) fresh ripe fruit or scraps (apple and pear peels and cores, overripe soft fruits like peaches and nectarines), cut into 1-inch pieces (bruised is okay, but moldy is not)

1. Combine the water and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stir frequently until the sugar has dissolved, about 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let the sugar syrup cool to room temperature.
2. While the sugar syrup cools, place the fruit in a 3-quart glass or ceramic crock. An apple core or a few greens from berries can go into the jar, too, as long as they have not been sprayed with pesticides. I like to include a leaf from whatever fruit variety I’m working with; I believe that the naturally occurring yeast from the outdoors helps start my vinegar off on the right foot.
3. Pour the cooled syrup over the fruit. Cover the top of the jar with cheesecloth or a clean towel (to allow for air to come in) and secure it with a rubber band. Air is a sort of ingredient in vinegar making, and the mixture needs air to be able to ferment. Place the jar out of direct sunlight in a temperate part of the kitchen (you want someplace not too cold but no hotter than 75°F).
4. Stir the fruit once daily for 1 week. You may see bubbles or hear fizzing when you stir the fruit. If so, taste the liquid to confirm the presence of alcohol. (You may also be able to smell it and detect the booziness—if it smells boozy, it has turned to alcohol.) Strain the fruit out and discard it. Replace the cheesecloth and band and leave the jar undisturbed for another week.
5. From here it’s a wait-and-see game. Check the jar, but do not stir it. Look for a glob of whitish jelly floating—that’s the mother. If she’s arrived, you’re really doing this vinegar thing right! Some fruit produces a thicker floating mother (peaches and nectarines), while others (apples, cherries, blackberries) produce a finely textured sediment or a thin film of culture on the surface of the liquid. So much depends on the environment, and there is no one right look. It’s all about reading the signs.
6. Smell and taste the vinegar again and again over the next few weeks. Stop when you think it tastes great, depending on how strong you want the vinegar to be. If it tastes like vinegar, and has no booziness at all, then it is indeed vinegar.
7. When the vinegar is ready, remove the solid mother from it to use for a new batch. The mother will mature with age, getting stronger from batch to batch and increasing the complexity of the vinegar each time. Cover the fruit vinegar with a solid lid and refrigerate indefinitely. Left unshaken, it will separate over time, but just shake it up before you use it and you’re good to go. Held at room temperature, it may grow another mother, and over time it might become less potent. Storing it in the fridge extends this time.
8. How should you use it? Make a salad! Add some honey and soda water and make a shrub! Take a shot of it in the morning to jump-start your gut. Save fruit scraps in the freezer in between batches and make use of all the stuff that would normally end up in the compost.