How to Make Pineapple Vinegar from Pineapple Scraps
My easy pineapple vinegar recipe requires only four ingredients: pineapple scraps, sugar, raw vinegar for a starter culture, and water. This is the perfect recipe to use up pineapple scraps.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Fermentation Time: 9 weeks
- Total Time: 1512 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 gallon
- Category: Vinegar
- Method: Fermentaiton
Ingredients
- 6 cups chopped organic pineapple scraps*
- 255 grams of organic cane sugar
- Water
- 3 tablespoons raw vinegar with the mother*
- 1 gallon glass jar
- cloth covering
- rubber band
Instructions
- Please read the recipe notes.
- Wash the pineapple rind if you haven’t already. Chop the pineapple scraps into chunks.
- Add the sugar and pineapple to a 1-gallon glass jar.
- Add water to the jar until full.
- Add in a few tablespoons of raw vinegar with the mother. This helps establish a good microbial community (see notes below)
- Stir the mixture until all the sugar is dissolved.
- Place a cloth lid on the jar and secure with a rubber band.
- Stir the mixture once or twice a day and allow to ferment at room temperature for three weeks. Don’t forget to stir it. I like to just do it first thing in the morning each day.
- You should notice the mixture bubble within one week.
- After three weeks of fermentation, strain out all the pineapple pieces, replace the cloth lid and allow the mixture to ferment for 6 more weeks.
- You will notice a vinegar mother form on the surface (it looks like a kombucha SCOBY but is very light in color). You can keep this to start your next batch of vinegar.
- After fermentation, bottle the vinegar and seal it with a solid lid. Store at room temperature in your pantry.
Notes
- Vinegar works best with a starter culture. While it is possible to make vinegar without it, adding a vinegar mother or raw apple cider vinegar with the mother to the mixture ensures success. If you have a kombucha SCOBY or raw kombucha, you can sub for that with good results.
- For very strong vinegar, you can also add in some sulfite-free wine, tequila, or vodka in place of some of the water.
- You should use organic or homegrown pineapple scraps in this recipe. Conventional pineapple is prone to kahm yeast, which is not suitable for vinegar fermentation.
- If you’ve had trouble with kahm yeast when making vinegar, try boiling all the ingredients then allowing it to cool before adding the raw vinegar with the mother starter culture.
