 I often have apple cider vinegar first thing in the morning with some water just to help kick start my digestive system or 30 minutes before meals just to help get my stomach juices flowing. However, I recently learnt about making your own pineapple vinegar from leftover pineapple scraps and I thought this was just such a great idea to help reduce food waste and just help use up the pineapple skin and break it down a little bit before I compost it as it's partially fermented and just helps it break down a little faster rather than just putting it straight in the compost. This process also gives use to the entire fruit and it's a fantastic way to get more probiotic rich foods into your diet. This vinegar can help liven up any salad dressing, stir fry, veggie dish, marinade or sauce and has many health benefits. Pineapple vinegar has all the same health benefits as that of eating fresh pineapple which is no surprise there. And it's also rich in bromelain, a well known enzyme famous for its anti-inflammatory properties and digestive promoting effects. Pineapple vinegar also contains a heap of gut loving probiotics and can help support and strengthen the immune system. You can drink one teaspoon of pineapple vinegar diluted in water each day or 30 minutes before meals to help promote better digestion or you can use it as a replacement for recipes that call for other types of vinegar such as in salad dressing, tonics and things like that. This vinegar can also be used as a natural cleaning agent. It's a wonderful disinfectant and can help remove odours, just avoid using it on granite or marble services. When making your own homemade pineapple vinegar just always ensure that you thoroughly wash and clean the skin of your pineapple with a vegetable brush before you start using it in any pineapple recipes. The rind can harbour bacteria and dirt which you don't want getting into your vinegar. Also ensure that the jars have been sterilised and cleaned beforehand as you don't want any undesirable bacteria growing in the pineapple vinegar as it won't be able to produce proper vinegar it will go mouldy instead. When making this vinegar you also don't want to cap the jar tightly as this cuts off air circulation which can kill the beneficial bacteria and yeast fermenting of vinegar. Instead you want to place some cheesecloth or other breathable material over the top and just affix it to the jar with a rubber band. This will allow it to stay covered and keep bugs out but still allow airflow to the vinegar. Though beware of ants and fruit flies, I found when I originally covered over my jar with cheesecloth that they were still able to make their way through so you may need to use something more tightly woven if you find this is a problem as well. That's why I switched to using a tea towel and then using a nut milk bag as I found this was more tightly woven and they weren't able to get through. You also want to stir the vinegar gently every day for 3-4 weeks as this will help to further aerate the vinegar and promote healthy fermentation. I will link in the description the full recipe for this homemade fermented pineapple vinegar so if you want to find the full recipe it will be there. To make the pineapple vinegar just cut up the pineapple scraps into small chunks so I had a pineapple that I got from my local market and I'd make sure to wash and scrub it beforehand to make sure there's no dirt or bacteria on the skin and then I just chopped it up into small pieces and just kept the flesh part of the pineapple to have as a snack later on so I popped that in a container and then the skin I just chopped up into small pieces so that I could fit more of the pineapple skin into the jar and just popped that in and then from there I had a few leftover pineapple skin so I just composted that. From there you want to mix the sugar in the water until the sugar dissolves so I got a nice big jug I used my Vitamix and I just popped in four cups of water and then mixed in the sugar with that making sure I stirred the water until the sugar was completely dissolved. From there I added the sugar water to the pineapple pieces in the jar making sure I covered them all and left a one centimeter gap at the top because the mixture will expand as it ferments so it can actually overflow so you want to make sure you leave a gap at the top to allow for this expansion. Then I covered the mouth of the jar with a cheesecloth and secured with a rubber band. I placed the jar in a dark spot in our kitchen out of direct sunlight and allowed it to ferment for a few weeks. Now I found that fruit flies were getting into the jar so I changed the cheesecloth after the first week to a towel just a tea towel and I covered it with that to help keep the fruit flies out. After the first few days I found my pineapple vinegar was looking quite good but by the time it got to the end of the first week it looks like it was going moldy. I wasn't entirely sure what it was supposed to look like at the top but to me it just looks like mold was starting to grow in amongst the scoby I guess that was forming on the top so I decided to compost the pineapple vinegar and just start again. So I then grabbed my other half of the pineapple that I'd left in case this might happen as this was my first time making it and I cut that up again and cut the skins into small pieces then popped it into the jar again added my sugar water stirred that around and then covered it with a nut milk bag. I thought maybe that it wasn't receiving a air circulation with a tea towel or that I hadn't sterilized the jar properly beforehand so the second time round I made sure to properly sterilize the jar using hot water shaking that around and also cleaning the outside of the jar letting it dry completely and then switching out the tea towel for a nut milk bag which it looks like it would receive more airflow from that. I found this actually helped a lot as the second time round my pineapple vinegar started to get that nice vinegary scent and I thought it was fermenting properly this time so after the first week it looked really good I made sure to stir it every day to ensure that it was getting aeration through the vinegar and fermenting properly and then by the second week looked really good and then by the third week it started to develop a little type of scoby over the top they usually find in apple cider vinegar and kombucha making and it also looked like it was developing mother at the bottom of the jar where the pineapple scraps were sitting so that looked really healthy and really good so after three weeks I tasted the vinegar to make sure that it was acidic like vinegar and it did it tasted really good so I strained out the pineapple chunks using a nut milk bag into a sterilized bottle if it does need a little longer to ferment you can let it go for another week and then from there I just stored the vinegar in my fridge it can last up to one year and at room temperature the vinegar will continue to ferment which is why I try to keep it in the fridge unless you want to be more vinegary you can keep it at room temperature and that's how you make this easy DIY pineapple vinegar I hope you guys enjoyed today's video do let me know if you tried out yourself otherwise I hope to see you again soon in my next video bye