I have a lot of yeast activity in a 2 quart jar of apple peels. Now what?

[fermentation_is_good]

I peeled a bunch of apples and dehydrated them. I took all the peels and put them in a 2 quart mason jar and put 100 degree water in there and submerged the apple peels with a glass weight like I would with kimchi. They are long peels from the apple peeler. I read on some website you could take the water from that, put in another vessel, add yeast, and ferment it.

Anyway, a few days later and there is a *ton* of activity going on. I am only guessing it is yeast, but there are bubble in there, a lot of them. I don't see the airlock really percolating though. I saw another place that said this is how you get vinegar. But, you have to get alcohol first.

My question is, how long should I leave those peels in there for hard cider? Say I did that for a week or so. Is that now hard cider? Or, Do I pour out the water/leeched juice, and put it in something, add yeast and try more fermentation? My end goal was for it to make alcohol (consumable kind)...and maybe vinegar after that. I honestly just wanted to see it work.

I had tried this with just juice and pulp from a Vitamix (another question here), but it isn't going as well as the peels. There is only a little activity after 8 days.

I don't know what do with the jar of peels going wild though. I haven't added any yeast, sugar, nothing.

 

[ncguire]

I wouldn't think there would be enough sugar to make much alcohol just from apple peels and water, but I've never done anything like that before, so don't take my word for it. Do you have a hydrometer? A hydrometer reading of the liquid from the start would be able to tell you how much sugar you started with and allow you to calculate how much alcohol you end up with when it finishes fermenting. May need to add sugar. Flavor wise, I think this method would be better for making vinegar than a beverage.