Tepache is a traditional fermented drink made with pineapple. You can do many things with fruit peelings, including making vinegar. So it should come as no surprise that in parts of Mexico and South America, this fermented pineapple drink is made from the peels of the pineapple. Pineapple is a sweet fruit when fully ripe, so it lends itself well to a lightly carbonated, refreshing drink such as this tepache recipe.
20 minutes
96 hours
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INGREDIENTS AND EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE AT CULTURES FOR HEALTH
Butter Muslin
Butter Muslin
$5.99
Butter Muslin is a tightly woven cloth, similar to cheesecloth, used for draining, pressing, and straining soft cheeses, yogurt or milk kefir. Butter muslin cloth also works as a breathable jar cover for all sorts of fermenting applications.
Grolsch Style Flip Top Bottles
Grolsch Style Flip Top Bottles
$4.99
Our favorite air-tight bottles hold just over 16 ounces of goodness while your brew gets fizzy. Crafted from heavy-duty glass with rugged bottoms to ensure it stands steady on any surface making it the best quality on the market. With the air-tight swing top lids, these bottles will preserve your brew's freshness and fizz for days to come.
Many variations of tepache recipes are made throughout Central and South America. Some recipes call for spices such as cinnamon and cloves, some call for a large quantity of added sweetener, and others call for no sweetener at all for a drier-tasting tepache drink. This is a very basic recipe, calling for 1 to 2 cups of sweetener, the latter of which will have a sweeter taste once fermented. As with most fermentations, this tepache drink recipe does contain a very small amount of alcohol, especially when made with extra sugar. Also, do be careful to not let it ferment too long or you will end up with vinegar.
Download our Kombucha recipe book, filled with tips, tricks and delicious homemade recipes to start making your own fermented tepache drink.
What is Tepache?
Tepache is a traditional fermented pineapple drink that uses the parts of the pineapple that we usually throw away. In a process that does not complete dissimilar from kombucha, we use the natural yeasts on the pineapple to begin to ferment the natural sugars in the pineapple still stuck to the pineapple peels and the sugar we will add. By giving this time to come together, the tepache recipe will produce a fermented drink full of probiotics with a tangy, fruity, tropical flavor.
INGREDIENTS IN MAKING TEPACHE:
- 2 pineapples
- 1 to 2 cups sugar or sweetener of choice, depending on taste
- Water to cover
INSTRUCTIONS FOR TEPACHE RECIPE:
- Remove tops and peels of pineapple, leaving 1/4 to 1/2 inch of fruit on each peel. Set fruit aside to eat fresh. We want to use the rind we would normally throw away to make tepache, so just eat the fruit itself like normal!
- If using a granulated sweetener, dissolve in hot water. In a one-gallon, non-reactive vessel, combine pineapple, sugar water, and additional water to cover. Weight down the pineapple peelings to keep them below the level of the water. Cover vessel. Experimenting with different amounts and kinds of sugar from regular cane sugar to brown sugar to piloncillo, a traditional Mexican sugar.
- Place in a warm spot and allow to ferment for 1 to 5 days, checking the flavor daily to achieve desired taste. The longer it ferments, the more fizzy and sour it will become. You can taste as you go until it achieves the taste you're looking for.
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Strain off and serve over ice as is, or to produce a more carbonated beverage, place in airtight bottles 3 days into fermenting (before it becomes too fizzy), cap, and refrigerate immediately. This is the same process we use during kombucha making for a second ferment.
Want to start making your own fermented drinks? Download our Kombucha Guide and Recipe book today!
