The first was for cider vinegar. This basically involves putting apple peel and cores in a jar with a little sugar and covering with water, and leaving to stand for a few days. After this, it's strained and bottled (a washed out fancy lemonade bottle) and stands again to turn to vinegar. It's easy and the only cost is a tablespoon or two of sugar; my main difficulty was finding peel and cores that were good enough to use as the early apples were damaged. I filled a jam jar though, let it stand, bottled it, let it stand again .
After a week I checked how things were going. Nice and fizzy, and smelling more like cider than vinegar. The instructions said to leave for another week and let the sour vinegary taste develop...
At this point I decided to change the whole experiment into one of making cider. In short, I drank it. And very nice it was too; somewhere close to the sweet fruit ciders I buy, and definitely something I though I'd try again.
Second time, I somehow forgot to drink it, and when I opened the bottle it had certainly turned to cider vinegar. There are a multitude of ways I could have used it but I added it to an apple/chilli pickle I was making.
A less successful experiment was the one trying to make beer from stale bread. Having seen Louisa Ziane from Toast Ales talking at Timber Festival about how Toast uses unwanted bread in their manufacturing process, I'd become intrigued with the idea of making something from nothing, or, at least, from scraps I was planning to feed to the birds. I'd found a very basic recipe on the web, which involved stale crusts, water and a little sugar - so nothing much to lose. After its initial few days with the bread steeping in a jar, it smelt fine, and it seemed quite believable that I'd end up with beer. I strained it, sat it in a clean jar on th kitchen windowsill and for a day or so it bubbled, but then the weather turned and cooled considerably, and the beer-making process stopped. Maybe I should have moved it to the airing cupboard to keep warm but I was worried about it bubbling over (I've had accidents with home made wine before!). I'm sure it's something I'll try again - maybe with some failed sourdough bread - but this first attempt wasn't a success.
A less successful experiment was the one trying to make beer from stale bread. Having seen Louisa Ziane from Toast Ales talking at Timber Festival about how Toast uses unwanted bread in their manufacturing process, I'd become intrigued with the idea of making something from nothing, or, at least, from scraps I was planning to feed to the birds. I'd found a very basic recipe on the web, which involved stale crusts, water and a little sugar - so nothing much to lose. After its initial few days with the bread steeping in a jar, it smelt fine, and it seemed quite believable that I'd end up with beer. I strained it, sat it in a clean jar on th kitchen windowsill and for a day or so it bubbled, but then the weather turned and cooled considerably, and the beer-making process stopped. Maybe I should have moved it to the airing cupboard to keep warm but I was worried about it bubbling over (I've had accidents with home made wine before!). I'm sure it's something I'll try again - maybe with some failed sourdough bread - but this first attempt wasn't a success.
