More Hubble Bubble

A weekend visitor asked if she could take a photo of my window sill. She said that no one else had a window sill like mine. Tomorrow, there will be another strange thing to look at, this is why…
I was researching the health benefits of chrysanthemum tea the other day when I came across a blog from Malaysia http://happyhomemaker88.wordpress.com full of all sorts of interesting recipes and information. This particular cleaning enzyme had been adapted from a formula for a garbage enzyme developed by a naturopath, Dr Joeen Oon, who is concerned about the 7.3 million tonnes of waste that Malaysia generates each year. She uses the enzyme, diluted with water to do everything: cleaning toilets, bathrooms, dishes, laundry, washing fruit and vegetables, clearing drains, to mop floors, as a natural repellent and as shampoo and face cleanser!!!!! I think that deserves a few exclamation marks, don’t you?
You can use any food scraps you like but meat and other proteins will make it smell really bad during its fermenting process. In the homemaker blog she used only citrus peels. How wonderful to find another use for something the chooks won’t eat and are not great in the compost. Anything that uses lemons instantly gets my attention as I have a Meyer lemon that has obscene amounts of fruit for ten months of the year.



Here is my interpretation that combines both versions of the recipe:

Citrus Enzyme Based Multipurpose Cleaner
You will need either; a large plastic container, a screw top jar, 2 litre juice bottle or a 10 litre lidded bucket, depending on how much you want to make.
The only ingredients you need are brown sugar, kitchen scraps and water in a proportion of 1:3:10.
The amounts given below will fit into a 2 litre juice bottle.

100 g brown sugar
300g of citrus or other scraps
1 litre of water
Use a funnel to pour the sugar into the bottle.
Drop in the fruit slices
Pour in the water (tap water is okay)
Put the lid on tightly.
Mark the bottle with the date it will be ready, in 3 months time.
Give it a good shake.
For the first month you will need to open the lid as the pressure inside builds up with the fermentation process. Don’t let the bottle start to swell.
After 3 months it should be a nice brown colour, if not add an extra amount of sugar and ferment some more. It should not smell ‘rotten’ this means it needs to ferment some more.
Filter through an old cloth and bottle.

Use diluted 1 Tbsp to one litre of water. You will need to experiment to find the best dilution for your brew.
This all sounds good to me; cheap and easy to make, environmentally friendly, uses something you would otherwise throw away and has a little bit of magic too! If anyone else has done this, let me know how you got on with it.
I’ll let you know how mine goes
Nirala