I wish I could take full credit for this amazing waste-reducing recipe, but I can’t. I found it on the Zero Waste Chef around a year ago, only two months after I’d thrown out industrial quantities of apple peels from that year’s dehydrated apple batch. I was gutted at the time that I hadn’t found the recepie sooner. I hadn’t even been able to put it in a compost bin at the time either since we lived in a flat with no composting facilities.

Since we bought and moved to our own home I’ve made four huge batches of apple cider vinegar. I use vinegar for my skin, hair, cleaning the house, cleaning food, cooking and even for my cut flowers. I use it a lot! For the moment I get as many apples as I can from my parent’s or in-laws’s gardens, but eventually, the plan is to have a few of our own fruit trees.

I’ll normally make the vinegar when I’m about to make a large batch of dehydrated apples. I could happily eat these all day, they are so very easy to make and now I can get use out of the peels and cores too before they go to the compost bin.

What I use: 

• • • Large Jars: So far these are the largest jars that I have, a 1.5 ltr jar and a 3ltr jar.
    • Apple Peeler: I bought this one in Claus Olson 5 years ago.
    • Dehydrator: My abuela used one, my one has one and I use one too. They’re expensive but worth every penny if you dehydrate food regularly.
    • Sugar: I’m sure you could use brown sugar without any problems, but I use white.
    • Water: Preferably filtered but tap water will work fine provided there isn’t too much chlorine in it.
    • Demijohn: I love drinking this cider and it comes in a beautiful glass bottle that I can re-use.