The Vinegar Issue! | Homemade All-Purpose Spray | Recipe: Fruit Scrap Vinegar
Issue No. 7
In today’s modern kitchens, made sterile from a misguided war on all bacteria, actively inviting microbes in the door can feel like a scary step. But the everyday magic of fermentation makes it worth taking the leap. There is a sense of wonder that comes from tasting a sour pickle that used to be a plain old cuke, or having a sip of fizzy, tart kombucha that was sweet tea a few weeks ago, or watching a bland grain porridge rise into a crusty loaf of bread. That’s why I love teaching about fermentation. I want to make this ancient craft — the transformation of food through the processes of beneficial bacteria — feel achievable. Last weekend, I filmed some fermentation tutorials (coming soon!) with the help of my talented photographer and videographer friend Nathan. Hopefully when we publish them more folks will be inspired to give fermentation a try.
And I really want you to give it a try, dear reader. That’s why this issue of Sunshine + Microbes is dedicated to one of my favorite ferments: vinegar.
Collaborating with microbes in the kitchen has so many benefits, from the ferments’ unique flavors to improving gut health to taking back power from our industrial overlords via a millennia-old process. Making vinegar is safe and satisfying, and best of all, the only skill you really need is patience. Put some basic ingredients in a jar and let those buggers go to work (with periodic check-ins) over the course of a few weeks.
This week’s recipe is a vinegar made with fruit scraps. Despite the number of steps, it’s fairly uncomplicated. Fruit scrap vinegar is an excellent way to turn a waste product (the fruit scraps) into something valuable and sure to brighten up any meal. Making your own batch of vinegar is also a fun introduction to fermentation — an ancient human craft of agrarian alchemy; a delicious life skill perfect for filling up a lazy August day, or earnestly preparing for the forthcoming end times.*
*I jest!...or do I? 👿
love,
Jackie
Cleaning Tips from a Dirty Hippie
Make-your-own cleaning products (with vinegar)
I generally loathe the use of words like “toxic” and dirty” (or “clean” and “natural” for that matter) to describe food or household products. Down with purity tests! Yes, there is bad stuff found in our everyday cleaning products, but inhaling some bleach every once in a while is not a big deal compared to this, this, and this. (However, it is a very big deal if you’re using them all the time).
Still, it’s best to stay out of harm’s way and keep money out of the hands of planet-destroying corporations. Instead of shelling out for overpriced green-washed “all-natural” cleaners, just make the stuff at home. Vinegar, baking soda, and hot soapy water will take care of the vast majority of cleaning needs.
The fruit scrap vinegar recipe below also can be converted into a lovely smelling all-purpose cleaner. Here’s a dead-easy recipe for a citrus-infused vinegar spray I use all the time.
Citizen Science Corner
Donate a deuce to The American Gut Project
There is an explosion of scientific research on the human gut, and researchers already are learning a buttload from the findings. Get inspired by this field of research by listening to this amazing two-parter from BBC’s The Food Programme (part 1 and part 2).
You can contribute to this new scientific frontier by requesting a kit to send in a special something (fecal sample) to the The American Gut Project, based at the University of California-San Diego. They will put it to good use. Oh and they’re also looking for dog gut microbiota too. Think of it like DNA testing’s kooky relative.
From the project’s website:
Michael Pollan did it, so it’s not that weird. Learn more here.
Fresh Links
Our favorite food and environment reads from around the internet. Read’em while waiting for your fruit scrap vinegar to ferment 👇
👩🍳You Asked For A Food Show | Planet Money
The NPR podcast digs into questions about the business of food: Like why are North Koreans obsessed with contraband chocolate pies? How do you get the best value at a salad bar? And why does the United States seem to be the only country to refrigerate eggs?
The episode has an inane and distracting Top Chef theme to it, but just ignore that and enjoy the rest of the show.
🌝 Moon can’t bear watching Earth do this to itself | Washington Post
Columnist Alexandra Petri is perhaps the one of the best young humorist/satirists in the country. Actually, I can’t name any young satirists. Nevertheless, she’s great and this short, sentimental story on the state of Our Planet from the Moon’s point of view is worth reading.
“Earth and I came up together,” the Moon went on. “I remember when it was just nothing. No people. Not even its signature blue-green cloudy tint. It was just us two rocks spinning here. But I knew Earth had the potential to be more, and it kills me to watch …” The Moon waned a little. “You know. This.”
⚾Abuela, Chef, Boss: Baseball star’s grandmother feeds the pros | NY Times
Altagracia Alvino, the 66-year-old grandmother of young Dominican baseball star Vladimir Guerrero Jr., has been cooking for players in the league for two decades. That includes her son, recent Hall of Fame inductee Vladimir Guerrero, but also hundreds of other players.
Her secret is the sauce (sofrito) for her beloved stewed beans. She started with a purée of cilantro, onion, garlic, celery and oregano, which she got from the Dominican Republic because, she said, it tastes better. She added tomato paste, seasoning blends, chicken stock powder and sugar, giving the beans a hint of sweetness that she believes sets them apart.
“It’s amazing,” Blue Jays second baseman Cavan Biggio, 24, who is from Texas, said of Alvino’s cooking.
“The best,” added Rafael Devers, a Dominican 22-year-old Boston Red Sox third baseman who likened Alvino’s cooking to his mother’s and grandmother’s.
RECIPE: Fruit Scrap Vinegar
I’m in the middle of tropical fruit mayhem. Now it’s my starfruit tree that’s kicking into gear. Anyone with a starfruit tree knows how prolific those suckers are. A solution for those too-bountiful harvests: Make vinegar. It’s an excellent way to use up ugly or unwanted fruit — the peels, the pits, or bruised, mushy, or otherwise worse-for-wear produce.
Vinegar is a two-stage fermentation process. First ferment alcohol, and then ferment the alcohol into vinegar. Vinegar is the perfect Florida ferment as it loves a hot environment.
Ingredients:
Approximately 2 cups fruit scraps of any variety or quality ( avoid anything that is actively moldy or dirt-covered. What I do is keep a Tupperware in the fridge and throw all my scraps into it. When I have enough I start a new batch of vinegar)
3 tbsp sweetener of choice (brown or cane sugar, maple syrup, honey)
3 cups water
1 cup unpasteurized vinegar (any apple cider vinegar that’s labeled “with the mother” will work, but eventually you can use previous homemade batches to culture the next one)
Step-by-step
Place fruit scraps in a wide mouth mason jar, or another vessel that is taller than it is wide.
In a separate bowl, mix the sweetener into warmish water until it has dissolved, and pour the sugar solution over the fruit scraps.
Weigh down the scraps so they are submerged in the brine. Find a small jar that fits inside of the larger jar is one option. Or press an open ziplock bag into the jar and fill it with water. The goal is to keep the scraps below the liquid and away from oxygen to prevent mold growth on the contents. Cover the jar with a kitchen towel and allow to ferment for 5-7 days at room temperature. Check on the jar every couple days and make sure the scraps remain submerged in the brine.
After a week or so, the ferment will be active and bubbling. It will smell and taste like alcohol, and the color of the liquid may darken. Congratulations, you just brewed your own hooch! The sugar in the fruit attracted lactic acid bacteria, which found their way to the jar and went on a binge. They ate all the sugar they could find and converted it into alcohol. Give it a little taste at this point to make sure it worked ; )
Weighting Option 1
Weighting Option 2
To transform the alcohol into vinegar, use a fine mesh sieve and strain out the fruit scraps from the hooch. Press to get all the liquid out of the fruit. Pour the hooch in a bowl, or a vessel that is wider than it is tall. The surface of the alcohol should be exposed to as much oxygen as possible. Add the unpasteurized vinegar (the starter culture) to the hooch and whisk it it thoroughly. Incorporate as much oxygen into the ferment as possible. When exposed to oxygen, omnipresent acetobacter bacteria and aerobic yeasts consume the sugars in the alcohol and convert them to acetic acid aka vinegar.
Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel. This will keep bugs and dust out, but allow oxygen access to the ferment. Find a place in the kitchen for the ferment to live, ideally somewhere nice and warm.
Stir every day (or every day that you remember) to introduce more oxygen into the ferment. After 7 days begin to taste and smell. When the alcohol has transformed into vinegar it will taste pleasingly sour to you. In my hot kitchen, this generally happens after 10 to 14 days, depending on alcohol content, aeration, and temperature.
After a week, taste the vinegar daily. Once it’s sour, move it to an airtight container for storage as the flavor will start to degrade. Think of it as a bell curve. The longer the vinegar is exposed to oxygen, the longer acetobacter will convert precious acetic acid into water and carbon dioxide, which doesn’t taste good.
Troubleshooting:
Occasionally during the second fermentation stage (see step 5), a solid mass will form on the surface of the ferment. This is called the mother. Sometimes it’s a solid, gelatinous mat. Sometimes it’s little gooey wispy things. Solid mother formation is not particularly common in my experience, and it’s neither a good or bad sign. The vinegar can still ferment without the formation of a mother. If a mother does form, just strain it out before storing the vinegar away.
When it’s really hot out, I occasionally get a white film of kahm yeast (it looks like mold, but it’s not) on top of the vinegar. It’s a harmless yeast, and the worst thing it will do is make the flavor a bit cheesy. Not ideal, but not a deal-breaker. What I tend to do is skip these batches for culinary applications. I just strain out the kahm yeast using a kitchen towel and use the vinegar to make an all-purpose cleaner (see Cleaning Tips from a Dirty Hippie).
☝️The Mother. Strain that mother away.
Oh, bother.
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is the current Chef-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a freelance reporter based in Colombia. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes others scraps to each issue.