Kombucha has got me fermenting, in the best way possible. I've always wanted to try my own saurkraut and apple cider vinegar projects but just never had the experience or motivation. Now that I've been brewing kombucha for months, I've had the confidence to try other ferments. And I'll admit I've straight had crappy results most of the time, for various reasons but it's taught me a lot about fermented food and it's also taught me that kombucha is fermenting food on easy mode.
It started with 3 tsp of sugar, enough chopped apples to fill a quart sized jar and water to fill to the top. I used whatever I could as fermentation weights as it's totally essential to keep all the pieces submerged or you will deal with mold issues. I only apparently found one good solution for this out of the three I tried because only one of my jars didn't end up with mold. Due to the fact that this is a ferment that's fairly hard for new people to master, I boosted my chances by adding a little bit of raw apple cider vinegar to the liquid to help raise the acidity and keep the mold possibility low.
I used apples that were getting old and shrively. You can use ones that are bruised so long as you throw away the bruised bit. I'd avoid it if the whole thing is soft, but it's a good way to use up apples that aren't appetizing but still okay. Many people just save their peels and cores from apples in a ziplock bag in the freezer, starting new batches of vinegar when they get enough together. I'm sure I'll experiment with this eventually, although the peels will be difficult to keep submerged without a fermentation weight.
They make these glass disks sized for ball jars as fermentation weights, but those are expensive. I'm interested in devising a hollow solution here on the torch to fill the purpose in the future, as I found that a small jar that fit in the top filled with water was the best way to do this. In ferments like sauerkraut most people just use a whole leaf with weights on top to submerge that; I've wondered if I couldn't do something similar with a bigger flatter piece of apple. These are all things to try in the future, when I dig my fermentation cellars or wait for the super hot time to be over. Even my kombucha is getting kahm yeast on it's smaller brews (only a fraction of my capacity at this point) which is an indication that it's too hot to brew, or nearly so.
Now I used brown sugar but what you use is up to you, as long as it's sugar and not a sugar alternative. The sugar isn't for you, its for the bacteria that break down the apples, sugar and produce vinegar for us. The ratio I used was about 3 tsp to a quart jar filled with apples, then filled with this sugary water.
These are just the photos from when I started this process more than six weeks ago. Not only is brewing apple cider vinegar often finnicky, it takes forever to finish. Even now, it's sitting in a jar without the fruit fermenting further; we will probably end up putting it in the water for the birds for their health.
One of the more ridiculous attempts at weighing down the apple pieces up front with the one that was successful behind, with the clear jar sticking out of the top. That jar is just the tiniest mayonnaise jar you can buy here.
**Materials Needed: **
1 quart glass jar
Apples or apple pieces, enough to fill the jar
3 tsp sugar
water to fill, starting with 1 cup to mix with sugar
Apple cider vinegar as starter, optional
coffee filter
rubber band
1) Start by sterilizing the jar, vinegar is a good way to do this. You just want yourself, you jar and your work surface to be as clean as possible.
2) Chop up apples or put peels and cores into the jar, packing until full.
3) In a bowl, start dissolving the sugar in a cup of filtered water. It doesn't have to completely dissolve, just start the process.
4) Pour the sugar over the apples, if sugar stays in the bowl, use the water you need to fill in the extra space to rinse it out and into the jar.
5) Cover with water until everything is submerged. Leave some space, like a centimeter at the top if you can, but it's not necessary. Just know this will bubble over at a point if you don't like mine did, and make a big mess. This isn't an issue other than it makes a mess.
6) Weigh down those pieces, there are many ways to do this. Google gives some creative ones, just make sure they're glass or ceramic, as you can get ceramic ferment weights too.
7) Cover with a coffee filter and secure it with a clean, unused hair tie. Set in a dark cool place for 6 weeks, on top of a drip pan if you'd like to reduce mess. It'll foam over after a few weeks, which is totally normal as the process is at it's most active at that point. Then it'll start to form a mother and 6 weeks later, it's ready to harvest.
Stay tuned for the next part, sharing how to harvest the finished ferment and the things I learned from brewing!
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