Made tepache three times now and every batch tastes good and is completely still. Pineapple peels, sugar, water, muslin over the jar, three days on the counter, strain and drink.
Everybody else's photos have a head on it like a soda. Mine is pineapple tea. Am I missing a step or is the fizz something people exaggerate?
Two other things that quietly flatten a batch. Scrubbing the peels: the yeast lives on the skin, so rinse the dirt off but do not scrub hard or use hot water. And heavily chlorinated tap water, which slows wild yeast down, so filtered or left-out water helps.
A cold kitchen does it too. Everything still ferments, just much more slowly, and people conclude it failed when it needed another two days.
Bottle one plastic bottle alongside as a tester. When it goes firm, the glass ones are ready.
Before you go and do this, the safety half. Pineapple is sugary and wild ferments can be vigorous, which means bottles rated for pressure rather than whatever looks nice, checking them daily, and into the fridge the moment it is carbonated.
I have had a glass bottle go in a cupboard and the mess was the least of it. Open over a sink and pointed away from your face. Going from flat to dangerous takes about a day once you seal them.
@second_ferment · 3w ago · 3 replies
You are missing a step and it is the whole fizz. Wild yeast on the peels eats sugar and makes carbon dioxide, but in a jar with muslin over it the gas simply leaves. An open first ferment is barely ever bubbly and that is not a fault.
The fizz comes from a second ferment in a sealed bottle, where the gas has nowhere to go. Strain the peels out, bottle it in swing-tops, leave an inch of headspace, and give it twelve to forty-eight hours at room temperature.
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@flat_but_tasty · 3w ago
Does it need more sugar at bottling, or is there enough left after three days?
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@second_ferment · 2w ago
A small spoon of sugar or a splash of pineapple juice per bottle is cheap insurance, because after three days the yeast may have eaten most of what was in there. If the first ferment ran long and tastes properly sour, there is nothing left to make bubbles with.
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