Trying to Make Homemade Apple Cider Vinegar

Once you get into zero waste/reducing your waste, you realize that everything that you buy, you can probably make yourself.  Sometimes it can be something easy to accomplish, and sometimes not.  After taking my food waste class, I have become extremely aware of what I put into compost.  While composting is a “good” thing, not wasting is always better.  I was reading about food waste on Kathryn Kellogg’s blog (www.goingzerowaste.com) and she had a post about making your own apple cider vinegar.  All you needed was filtered water, sugar, apple peels and cores.  Sign me up!  It sounded easy and I had apples that were getting quite soft.  First thing I did was to make apple oat muffins:

This Canadian living recipe is heavenly! 

https://www.canadianliving.com/food/recipe/oat-and-apple-crumble-top-muffins

 I am a fan of the crunchy pecan brown sugar topping.  I always use two apples because I like a richer apple flavor and the extra apple keeps the muffins moist. 

I then took my leftover apple cores and peels and added 1 tablespoon of sugar and filtered water.  Kathryn wrote that all you needed to do was to leave them covered with a small piece of fabric in a dark place.

After 4 weeks, you removed the apples :

and then left the solution for another 8 weeks. The results were less than perfect.

The vinegar was very weak and my disappointment after 12 weeks of patient anticipation was immense.  After some further research on various blogs, I discovered that Kathryn had left out a few important details.  Given the number of apples that I had, I needed to add more sugar.  I also needed to stir the apple mixture every day and put a weight on the top of the apples to prevent them from rising up.  Bottom line: my experiment was a failure.

I am now waiting for the apples from my backyard, ornamental apple tree to ripen somewhat so that I can use them to make more apple cider vinegar.

My persistence to continue with this project is much like my enthusiasm for the environment.  Even though things don’t always work out the way I planned, I know I have to keep trying. In other words, despite my best efforts to reduce my imprint on the environment by reducing my waste and plastic consumption, others still continue to take plastic bags at the grocery store or non-reusable coffee cups at the office. Even though it can seem discouraging when not everyone is on board with the changes I think we should all be making for the environment, you have to persist. I like to think that my blog and the discussions I have with people about zero waste / reducing your waste is having an effect and I just have to keep it up. Guess the same applies to my apple cider vinegar experiment. I’ll let you know how my next try works out.

Challenge for the Week: Is there something new that you have tried and given up when it wasn’t as easy as you had hoped? Maybe you are ready to give it another shot. Or perhaps you have tricks to share with me about persistence in the face of adversity?