If you harvest your own fruit-any kind of fruit-you know how many leftover skins, seeds, pits, cooked stuff, raw stuff, and other things are leftover from processing. So much scrap, from so much good fruit. If you're anything like me, you may have wondered if there's anything you can do with it. There is: fruit scrap vinegar.
I first started messing around with fruit scraps in nice restaurants I worked in where we would have all kinds of amazing fruit come in. After the processing, sometimes there would be things leftover, pits, skins, seeds--things I knew had really delicious solutes still hanging out in them, but I didn't know what to do with.
The first thing I started doing was infusing vinegar with spent grape pits and seeds--and it was shocking. The flavor was concentrated, pure and delicious. If you want to know more about that, see my post on fruit-infused vinegar here--it's a great way to use fruit, especially berries.
Step by Step
This is the older, more mature cousin to the infusion recipe. This is an easy, naturally fermented vinegar made from skins, seeds, pits, pulp, and just about anything else you can throw at it. I've made it with frozen fruit, dried, rehydrated fruit, fruit juice and skins. The images below describe the process.
Adding Live Vinegar and Grain Alcohol
The basic recipe is a hybrid of two of my favorites: one from the Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz, and the other by Rene Redzepi in the Noma Guide to Fermentation. The Sandor Katz recipe is the most basic, and it's a great introduction--you just take fruit and sugar water, and let it ferment. It takes a long time, but it works well.
Rene's recipe speeds the fermentation process by adding live vinegar, along with some grain alcohol to increase ABV, ensuring an acidic result, as if there isn't enough sugar in the beginning product you won't have the amount of alcohol you need to get a good, tart, vinegar.
That being said, I made the recipe for years before I started adding a bit of vodka to it, so know that it's optional. There's recipes for both in this post.
What kind of fruit makes the best vinegar?
Berries, grapes and plums from my experience. The sky is really the limit though: pineapples, mango skins with bits of flesh attached, etc. Here's some of my favorites.
Highbush cranberries
Highbush Cranberries make a brilliant red vinegar. For these I always use the scraps leftover from making a cold juice extraction.
Wild Grapes
Like red wine vinegar, a beautiful nearly purple color, this will taste similarly strong and aggressive, but it's made by your own two hands! Use the scraps leftover from wild grapes after making juice.
Wild Blueberries
Wild blueberries make a deep blue vinegar, and will have a flavor comparable to wild grape, with a very subtle blueberry note.
Aronia Berries
The flesh of aronia berries is tannic, so vinegar is a great way to use them as the finished vinegar won't absorb tannins from the fruit.
Dealing with fruit flies in vinegar
Since I've posted this, I've gotten a lot of questions regarding the flies.
If you're starting this with fresh fruit during the growing season you may have to trouble shoot some things. Depending on your location, temperature, and conditions, fruit flies can be a small or large headache. Here's some tips.
- Secure the cheesecloth or lid as securely and tightly as possible. Use more layers of cloth than you think you need-at least 3. A single layer of cheesecloth is too porous to prevent flies from getting into the vinegar.
- If after two weeks you notice fruit flies, strain the solids out trough the finest mesh or cheesecloth you have, then wash the container, pour the liquid back in, cover and continue the fermentation process with a new cheesecloth top.
- Start and keep your vinegar outside to avoid having the flies in areas you frequent.
- We are conditioned to think that insects are problematic and potentially dangerous as they can harbor bacteria, but, in the case of vinegar, a fly or two in the liquid can actually help ensure a strong fermentation process as they are covered in natural yeasts. As the pH of the liquid decreases the flies die.
- Freeze your fruit and start the vinegar in the winter.
- While unappealing, fruit flies will not harm the vinegar or make it unsafe to consume.
How to Use Fruit Vinegar
The finished vinegar of dark fruits can be used anywhere you'd use red wine vinegar in general cooking. I often add sugar or maple syrup to it. Here's a few examples of how I use it.
- One of the best things to do with it is to add a sweetener like sugar or maple syrup to taste, and use it to season salads, along with oil.
- You can make it into a syrup by mixing equal parts vinegar and sugar by volume. It's good served warm or cool with game meat.
- Add it to barbecue sauce.
- Seasoning sour soups, especially borcht.
- Use it to make pickled beets and other pickles.
- Use it in a vinaigrette to season marinated vegetables, beans, and other composed salads.
FAQ
Vinegar powder is a chef secret for adding acid to dishes where you may not want additional liquid. To make a small amount to try, put your vinegar mother on a non-stick sheet such as a silpat/silicone mat, and dehydrate at 150 F until crisp. Store in a jar and powder to use it. Scoby mothers can be used similarly. I find it a novelty, personally.
Absolutely! Fresh cooked, or frozen fruit will all work fine Since the vinegar is "backslopped" with living vinegar, there is no need to worry about the success of fermentation if your fruit has been cooked or frozen, which can kill some of the living bacteria on it.
Yes, and it's delicious. You can substitute the juice of any fruit for the water in this recipe. To layer flavor, you can ferment the scraps of fruit in their pressed juice.
Classic Fruit Scrap Vinegar
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 lb fruit scrap from juicing, etc skins, seeds, etc
- 2 Tablespoons living vinegar such as apple cider, or vinegar from a previous batch
- 2 qts water
Sweetening
- 1 cups sugar, honey or maple syrup or to taste
Instructions
Fermentation
- Mix all ingredients, stir well to dissolve the sugar and put into a container, such as a plastic food tub, gallon water jug, bucket, etc.
- Cover the lid with cheesecloth, secure with twine or a rubber band, and leave out at room temperature, stirring as often as you can remember (I use a wooden spoon).
- After 2 weeks, strain out the solids, then pour the mixture into a half-gallon mason jar. Cover with cheesecloth and continue fermenting for another month or so, until the vinegar is good and strong. When it tastes sour like regular vinegar to you, screw a lid on the jar and store.
- If you forget to strain the solids out after one month, don't worry! It will turn out just fine and will have no effect on the success of the vinegar provided the vinegar is still allowed to respire and has access to air.
- During the process, if you get fruit flies which are annoying but will not harm the finished product refer to my trouble shooting tips in this post.
Sweetening (optional)
- Sweeten the finished vinegar by whisking in honey, maple syrup, or sugar to taste. Start with ½ cup of sweetener per quart of vinegar. Some add a splash of brandy too.
- Heat the sweetened vinegar until hot but not boiling. Cool and store in a container with a tight fitting lid at room temperature for up to two months, or refrigerated for long term storage.
Video
Accelerated Fruit Scrap Vinegar with Alcohol
Ingredients
- 750 grams 3 ¼ cups water
- 172 grams ¾ cup plus 1 Tablespoon previous fruit vinegar, or apple cider vinegar with live cultures
- 184 grams ¾ cup plus 2 Tablespoons 80 proof vodka
- 1 lb 2 packed cups fruit scrap from cooking, juicing, etc
- 50 grams ¼ cup sugar
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a 2 quart sized container, cover with cheesecloth, and allow to ferment for 2 weeks at room temperature, stirring as often as you can remember (I use a wooden spoon).
- After two weeks, strain the vinegar and allow to continue fermenting, still covered with cloth, until you like the flavor, a month or two.
- When you're pleased with the flavor, and you can't taste any sweetness in the vinegar anymore, put it into jars and seal, then store in a cool dark place.
Vanessa Bembridge
Hi Alan, my kiddo and I just harvested a bunch of river grapes today that we processed according to your directions and are settling in the fridge as I type to make jam tomorrow. I would like to use the scraps for vinegar, but want to confirm that it's ok to have the stems within the scraps and not just the fruit for this purpose. Should I pick out the stems before making the scraps vinegar? Thanks!
Alan Bergo
Yes pick them out as best you can, if there’s a couple tiny pieces it won’t matter but stems can make things bitter or astringent, generally speaking.
Penelope Wiltshire
I have heard you can use the fruit vinegar as hair shampoo, would you agree?
Vanessa Bembridge
I've not known Alan to make recommendations about body care! Seems out of the scope of his expertise to me.
Laurice Bankhead
This has been so much fun! So far this year I have made peach, pear, apple, and wild grape vinegars. I purchased a book on making your own vinegar a few years back. I struggled with having success, usually not having all the required ingredients or procedure was unclear. But you have opened a whole new world for me.
I've read what you posted about the fruit flies and they were also mentioned in the book as not being a problem. One of my wild grape batches acquired fruit flies after the scraps were filtered out. My cover was too porous. I have quite a few dead bodies in there. No big deal. I went to filter them out and realized many of them are actually stuck in the mother that has started to form.
Suggestions? Do I just leave them and keep the mother and not worry about it? Do I remove the mother, filter the vinegar, and hope a new mother grows? The batch was started on 9/6/26.
Alan Bergo
Hello. So if the flies on the mother are off putting just discard it. The vinegar has mother in it still and can be used to make new batches etc. When I get fruit flies I just strain it.
Laurice Bankhead
Thank you. They don't really bother me, so do you think it is ok to keep the mother for future use? I will strain any flies out of the vinegar once it is done aging.
Alan Bergo
It's totally fine to strain fruit flies from vinegar and use it. It just comes down to personal taste and how many insects you can stomach seeing. Pascal Baudar actually has a fruit fly vinegar recipe in his first book if I'm not mistaken, or discusses intentionally trapping them to use for their yeasts they'll have on them.
Olivia
Do you stir the vinegar in the aging phase once you’ve strained the mash or do you leave it. Also do you get a lot of evaporation?
Alan Bergo
Sure you can stir it once in a while. You don’t get a lot of evaporation.
Catherine Holmgren
I used this recipe last year to make both apple & chokecherry vinegars. Both came out great but the chokecherry vinegar was the really big hit! I want to make even more this year and am how I can use the actual chokecherry juice to make vinegar? (I have the mothers from last year’s vinegars.) My husband picked 15 lbs of chokecherries and there is only so much jelly & syrup we can use! (Plus I LOVE your Grandma’s chokecherry jelly recipe with the almond flavor but didn’t love that in the vinegar I made from those scraps.)
Alan Bergo
To use the juice to make vinegar you will substitute it for the water in this recipe, or use half water half juice, etc.
J.L.A.
First...Wonderful recipes and instructions as usual; nocino, mugolio, green walnut molasses, wild mushroom recipes galore for all I forage, and more, all successful! Thank you! Question: I have followed this recipe several times now, (wild plums, and Asian pears, ). The wild plum was delicious through its incarnations of shrub/soda/boozy wine, to vinegar, and was used so fast! The 9-month old Asian pear scrap vinegar now has quite a behemoth mother, (yay!), in it, and has tasted wonderful. I kind of let it go as an experiment after seeing it develop a Mother. Is maintaining the Mother as easy as pouring in new fruit juice, or alcoholic cider/wine/beer? Thanks for your work and efforts! Cheers!
Alan Bergo
Hi J. I think many of us have probably noticed the nice mothers this can make and let it ride to see what happens. They’re really durable and as long as they don’t dry out they keep for a long time. I may add a splash of fruit juice or scrap and water, rinse out a spent jam jar with water, etc occasionally. Or just skip the mother into a jug of sweet fruit juice and it’ll give you an even better vinegar than scrap and water.
Kim
I made my mix a week ago and in the last couple of days it’s developed small patches of mold on top. Is this normal? Should I throw it out?
Alan Bergo
Pick it off, wipe the inside of the jar with vinegar and proceed. A lot of people don’t know this but commercial maple syrup usually has a layer of mold in the processing plant that’s scraped off before it’s bottled. A little white mold is harmless, if there’s colored mold I throw it out.
Cyndy Archibald
Hi, Chef.
I use a steam juicer to extract juice from my grapes. Would I be able to use the residue for this, or does the steam heat it to too high of a temp? If I do use it, do you recommend that I add some of the extracted grape juice back in?
Thanks for all your recipes and tutorials. You have helped me get closer to my land.
Alan Bergo
Yes you can use cooked fruit, just make sure to add a living inoculant.
Dah
Thank you Alan, for the entirety of this site. I have followed a number of your tips & recipes, and many of the sources you have mentioned have been very enjoyable rabbit holes to enter. My partner's stomach and I really appreciate Forager|Chef
I am having a heck of a time with some of my vinegars. Right now I have 2 half gallon jars each with 32oz of pear pulp, and they are more aggressive than Adrian Peterson's parenting. Each time I have stirred them the pulp begins growing like the blob, expanding upward and pushing against the cheese cloth like a balloon. Tonight they were spitting through the cloth upwards more than 6'.
I had to cut into one of the cloths to release the pressure for the jar lid ring to unscrew! I scooped out some of the pulp and topped with more water, but I need to find some other vessels for pear if it is going to continue to misbehave like this.
Elderberry, sour cherry, plum, apple, and raspberry have all been successful.
Oregon grape has developed gross mold 2 years in a row.
Post script: When is that follow up book hitting the shelf?
Alan Bergo
Hey there, the new book is now in pre-release and will be out Jan 17
Lisa L
Hi Alan,
I made your classic fruit scrap vinegar for the first time starting July 13. I strained it august 10, and left to go out of town, leaving the cheese cloth on it. It molded! There was a “scoby-like” disc on the top of the vinegar as I stirred throughout the process. This time, I scooped off the mold, and it’s as if there are two scobies! I don’t know if this is salvageable or not, but I’d love to know what I can do to correct this from happening again. Thanks!
Cynthia Turner
I'm confused. The intro says to strain after a week but the actual recipe says to strain after a month. After 2 weeks, mine looks like it's ready to strain but I don't know.
Candace
The body of the text says to strain after one week, but the recipe card (Classic) says a month. Which time is correct?
Alan Bergo
HI Candace. A couple weeks is fine. I adjusted it so everything's consistent, thanks for pointing that out. It's a really flexible recipe.
Cynthia Turner
Please disregard my message haha. I didn't see this addressed until now.
TC
Mine is more of a general question: Before finding your recipe I attempted Juneberry syrup, obviously did not add enough sugar, it tastes fine but too thin. I know I need to reduce it further but also add more sugar. I didn't keep a record of how much I originally added but after using your recipe for chokecherries, I think I did about 1/2 what I should have. Any recommendations on salvaging it? Some older Hutterite ladies, experts in this field, said add 2 cups sugar, reduce it down, keep better records(or records at all, I started) & use it as a learning experience. It'll still be good & I'll remember. Sounded solid to me & that's probably what I'll do but this being the 21st century I thought I'd ask the person from whom I got the recipe. I'm a beginner who started with refrigerator pickles & using your recipe for chokecherry syrup was my 1st foray into hot bath canning, successful btw. Thanks
Alan Bergo
Hi TC. This is a pretty easy question to answer, but I can’t recommend exact proportions for you as we don’t know the starting quantity of juice. Generally speaking, recipes will call for 1 cup of sugar per cup of juice. Heavy syrup recipes will call for 2 cups of sugar per cup of juice. I strongly recommend 1:1 sugar to juice, and boiling it for a few minutes before canning, just like the chokecherry syrup you made before. Just like with that recipe, I also recommend adding some vinegar (like homemade fruit vinegar from this post) but it’s optional. Hope that helps.
Judy Barbe
Hi Alan, I just finished some chokecherry vinegar and it has a sweet mellow flavor and developed a mother. Started grape 2 weeks ago and every thing is different. No mother, bubbles when I stir it, but the flavor is more bitter, smells and tastes like wine. Is this normal? I’ve not yet strained it but I’m tempted. Thanks! Judy
Alan Bergo
If you’re worried about it, just add a little splash of the chokecherry vinegar to speed up the process. If it smells like wine it’s probably because the liquid will basically become wine, and then turn to vinegar during the process.
Judy Barbe
Sounds like it’s behaving as it should but just needs more time, right? Wasn’t sure about the wine to vinegar part of the process.
Alan Bergo
It's hard to say without inspecting your jar. Each fruit is a little different. Add a splash of living vinegar and / or a few ripe, unwashed grapes or other fruits that are rich in bloom and it should help speed things up.