Watermelon. Delicious on the inside, pretty gross on the outside. My spirit fruit. Eat the good stuff and throw out the rest, right? Hold on a minute. The typical thing to do is to vinegar pickle the rind two different ways, either in chunks or by using a peeler and making strips. Either way it’s a very lukewarm situation as no one in their right mind wants to eat the rind. Listen, the whole using scraps thing, well, no one is really paying much attention to it. No one cares. It’s more about the minor personal glory than anything else. Hey look everybody! I dried out the skins of the melon, encased them in plastic and made a mobile for the dining room!

I kid, I kid. the use of scraps, to me, is less about appearing clever than it is coming up with ways to use said scraps which, I have to say, gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Usually when I tell someone (a guest) about a scrap ingredient in. a seasonal cocktail I receive a look like a dog that has just been shown a card trick. A blank stare that, in turn, makes me wonder why I even waste my breath or care so much about what I do.

Day One

Day Four

Day Eight

What can we discern from the above photos?

Day one: Chlorophyl intact. No separation. It looks beautiful. A healthy green, maybe something you would spend a hard earned eighteen bucks on over at Kreation or Erewhon. While in line waiting to order, some chick in Alo gear tells you all about the health benefits of her daily watermelon rind and kale juice concoction. Oh! It does wonders for the skin!

By Day four, we see separation, what I like to call the raft where the solids begin to acquiesce toward the top of the jar and the liquid stays below and should start to ferment while being protected from oxygen. It is here where the natural yeasts present on the skin of the melon begin to proliferate and eat sugar, thereby burping, creating minute amounts of alcohol as well as carbonation (CO2). At this point, however, it approaches something you may think twice about drinking.

By Day Eight all the chlorophyl has dissolved and gone wherever it goes. The whole thing now looks like a total disaster. Brown. Something a plumber had to fish out of a sewage tank. We have officially hit the trust me it is fine stage. That is what I keep telling myself anyway…Will this be the one that sends me to the hospital? Or will it just give me 48 hours of violent diarrhea?

After ten days I strained and bottled. I kept the solids and put them in the dehydrator for no particular reason. You see, this whole use everything bit works really well for those who are borderline hoarders…Pack rats we will call them. I dont need an intervention…No, I dont (apostrophe button fully broken by the way. Geek Squad or Genius Bar?) I do throw things out but at the same time some things also…tend to accumulate…

In case you are wondering, yes, I did taste it, and I am still here to tell the tale sans any intestinal blow outs. It tasted pretty good actually. Like melon and dirt. Anyway, the bottles went into the walk-in for about four more days and this is where the disappointment set in because I went in to burp the bottles everyday and no report sounded. No gentle hiss, no explosion. Historically we have had pineapple tepaches erupt in the walk-in like Old Faithful. This one was a no go. Not even a nun fart…There is a strange glee that comes with the explosive ferments. Its alive! Its alive! (This no apostrophe is killing me)

Tepache-A even had a small amount of amazake placed into it in an attempt to promote fizzafication. Still nothing. Oh well. Other tepaches have also failed in the past, even one pineapple from the old days. The big factor is yeast. All those little catacombs in the surface of the pineapple trap yeast very well, the smooth surface of the watermelon, not so much. Best guess.

Your AI generated image for this post, #431, August 8, 2025