Vinagre de Piña Casero Oaxaqueño

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Unglazed clay olla from Atzompa or San Bartolo Coyotepec, or a one-gallon glass jar
• •Piece of muslin (manta de cielo) or a clean cotton dish towel
• •Kitchen string
• •Wooden spoon (never metal)
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Clean glass bottles for storage

Instructions

1. 1

   Choose the right pineapple

   Pick a pineapple that smells sweet at the base and gives slightly when pressed. The leaves should pull free with a light tug. Underripe pineapple has no sugar to feed the fermentation. Overripe pineapple is already turning and will give you mold instead of vinegar. The skin is what carries the wild yeasts that start everything, so do not scrub it with soap. Rinse it under cool running water and pat it dry.

   If you can buy pineapple from a mercado in Mexico, do it. The fruit has not been waxed and the wild yeasts on the skin are alive. Supermarket pineapple is often coated and washed with chemicals that slow the ferment. You will still get vinegar, just slower.
2. 2

   Cut the pineapple

   Slice off the crown and the base. Stand the pineapple upright and slice the skin off in thick strips. Reserve the skins. Quarter the flesh and cut out the tough core. Chop the core into rough pieces. The skins and the core are what you are fermenting. Save the flesh for agua fresca, for tepache, for whatever you want. We are not throwing the flesh away, we are putting it to work somewhere else. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.

3. 3

   Prepare the clay pot

   Use an unglazed clay olla, a wide-mouthed glass jar, or a food-grade ceramic crock that holds at least one gallon. The traditional vessel in Oaxaca is barro, unglazed clay. The clay breathes and the ferment happens slower and rounder. Glass works. Plastic does not. Plastic leaches and the wild yeasts do not love it. Wash the vessel with hot water only, no soap. Soap residue kills the ferment.

   If you use new clay, soak it in water overnight first to season it. Untreated clay can crack and can also pull some of your liquid into the walls. A seasoned olla is what every senora I have learned from uses for her vinegar.
4. 4

   Dissolve the piloncillo

   Place the chopped piloncillo in a saucepan with two cups of the filtered water. Heat over medium until the piloncillo dissolves completely. Do not boil it. You want a syrup, not a caramel. Take it off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Hot liquid will kill the wild yeasts on the pineapple skins, and without the yeasts, nothing happens. This is the most common mistake. Patience now, vinegar later.

5. 5

   Combine in the clay pot

   Drop the pineapple skins and the chopped core into the clay pot. Pour in the cooled piloncillo syrup. Add the remaining six cups of room-temperature filtered water. If you are making the spiced version from the Sierra Norte, add the canela stick and the cloves now. Stir with a wooden spoon. Never metal. Metal interferes with the ferment.

   The pineapple skins should be submerged or close to it. They will float at first. That is fine. You will push them down each day.
6. 6

   Cover and wait

   Cover the mouth of the pot with a clean piece of muslin, manta de cielo, or a cotton dish towel. Tie it down with kitchen string. The cloth keeps the flies out and lets the air in. Air is what turns alcohol into acid. Set the pot somewhere warm and dark. A pantry, a cabinet, the corner of a kitchen counter away from direct sun. The temperature wants to be between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Cooler than that and the ferment stalls. Hotter and you risk pushing it past vinegar into something funky.

7. 7

   Stir and watch

   Once a day, lift the cloth and stir the contents with the wooden spoon. Push the floating skins back under the liquid. By day three or four, you will see bubbles rising and you will smell something sweet and yeasty. That is tepache, the alcoholic stage. By day seven, the smell shifts. It turns sharper, more acidic. That is the bacteria taking over from the yeast. You are now making vinegar. By day fourteen, the smell is unmistakably vinegar, fruity and bright but with the bite of acid behind it.

   If you see a thin white film forming on the surface, that is the mother of vinegar starting. Good news. Leave it alone. If you see fuzzy green, blue, or black mold, the ferment failed. Throw it out and start over with a cleaner vessel and a riper pineapple. Mold means contamination, not vinegar.
8. 8

   Taste and decide

   At day fourteen, taste the liquid. It should be tart, fruity, and complex, with the pineapple still present behind the acid. If it tastes like sweet cider with a little bite, give it three to five more days. If it tastes sharp and clean, like apple cider vinegar with the soul of a pineapple, it is ready. Some senoras in the Valles Centrales let theirs go three full weeks. The longer you wait, the more acid you build, up to a point. Past four weeks it starts to flatten.

9. 9

   Strain and bottle

   Set a fine-mesh strainer lined with muslin over a clean glass bowl. Pour the contents of the clay pot through the strainer. Let the liquid drain without pressing. Pressing the solids forces sediment through and clouds the vinegar. Discard the spent skins and core. Pour the strained vinegar into clean glass bottles. Cap loosely for the first week, then seal. Store in a cool, dark place. The vinegar keeps for at least a year and only deepens. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The pineapple has to be ripe and unwaxed if possible. Wax kills the wild yeasts. If you can only find waxed supermarket pineapple, scrub it gently with water and a brush, no soap, and add a tablespoon of unpasteurized apple cider vinegar to the pot to introduce a starter culture. It is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Piloncillo is not the same as brown sugar. The molasses minerals in piloncillo feed the ferment in a way refined sugars do not. If you absolutely cannot find piloncillo, use the darkest unrefined cane sugar you can find. Avoid white sugar. The vinegar will be thin.
• •Save a cup of finished vinegar with some sediment from the bottom of the bottle. That is your starter for the next batch. The next ferment will go faster and tastes better. Asi se hace y punto.
• •This vinegar is the right one for escabeche de chile de agua, for cebolla morada encurtida, for the brine in pickled vegetables that go on tlayudas and tostadas. Do not use it on a green salad and call it a vinaigrette. It is built for Oaxacan work.

Advance Preparation

• •Plan two to three weeks ahead. There is no rushing this. The ferment runs on its own clock and trying to push it warmer or sweeter to speed things up gives you a bad ferment.
• •Once strained and bottled, the vinegar keeps for at least a year in a cool, dark cupboard. The flavor only deepens. After six months it has more body and a softer acid.
• •Save one cup of the finished vinegar with sediment as a starter for your next batch. Subsequent ferments go faster, sometimes ready in ten days, because the bacteria are already established.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 15g)