Homemade Vinegar from Fruit Scraps: Apple, Pear & More



When apple season hits and my counters are covered with peels and cores, I can’t help but think: this is vinegar in the making. It’s one of the simplest old-fashioned skills you can learn — and it costs almost nothing.

Make vinegar from fruit scraps and apple peels


I've been making vinegar for several years now: apple, plum and pear and even pineapple vinegar. If I have extra fruit, it becomes vinegar in my kitchen.

When I bottled the finished pineapple vinegar, I put the layer of mother-of-vinegar into a pint jar with enough vinegar to cover the top of it. The next time I make a new batch, I'll use this mother to get it started. It's the easy way to make vinegar.

Why you should make homemade vinegar


Making vinegar uses fruit scraps that might otherwise go to waste. It's super simple and practically free!

Homemade vinegar is healthy, contains no additives, and is rich in probiotics.

Plus it's super versatile. You can use your homemade vinegar for cooking, cleaning, in hair rinses, and in herbal infusions.

I use a vinegar-and-water rinse when I wash my hair, using my homemade vinegar. This week the bottle needed to be refilled, so I took it into the kitchen to add more. That's when I realized there was something inside the bottle that had been sitting in my shower...




A new "mother" had begun to grow inside this bottle of vinegar and water! 

I pulled the quart jar that holds my stored vinegar out of the cupboard so I could pour more into the hair-rinse-bottle, but I didn't see any new floating mother in that jar. 

Then I checked the pint jar where I was storing the mother from the last batch, and found that it too had grown another thick layer. I've had this happen before, but not an inch-thick layer like this one has.


BEFORE


Underneath the top layer you can see the original mother; the photo below shows the same jar when I strained the finished pineapple vinegar. You can see the original layer in the pint jar, folded over on itself. That top layer in the photo above is new, and it's very thick.


AFTER - with an inch-thick layer of spontaneous mother of vinegar!


The "magic" is in the "mother"


All you need is fruit, sugar, and water - and a little patience while nature does the work. The magic is in the "mother of vinegar," that strange jelly-like layer that forms on top. Don’t be put off; it’s what turns fruit into vinegar, just like a kombucha SCOBY or sourdough starter.


If you’d like to try this for yourself, I’ve put together a simple ebooklet with step-by-step directions. It covers:


  • Which fruits work best (and which don’t)

  • The proportions to use

  • How to know when it’s ready

  • How to store it, and keep your mother healthy for the next batch

This guide is beginner-friendly, and it will help you avoid the mistakes I made when I first started experimenting with making fruit vinegar.


This fall, don’t toss your apple peels. Turn them into something useful, old-fashioned, and delicious. Once you’ve made vinegar from scratch, you may find (like me) that it becomes one of your favorite kitchen traditions.



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Kathi Rodgers

Kathi Rodgers is the gardener and writer behind Oak Hill Homestead (est. 2006) and the host of HOMEGROWN: Your Backyard Garden Podcast. With over 30 years of gardening experience in a variety of climates and soils, she helps new and aspiring gardeners grow healthy, organic food right in their own backyards.

A passionate advocate for simple, self-reliant living, Kathi is the author of multiple ebooks, a published magazine contributor, and shares practical advice with readers who want real-life solutions they can trust.

Kathi lives in Oklahoma, where she grows more cherry tomatoes than she can count and keeps a watchful eye on tornado season. A proud grandma and great-grandma, she believes that wisdom - like a bountiful garden harvest - should be shared.

Read more here.



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