Making Fire Cider - October 8, 2019

Some of the ingredients, L – R: dried cayenne peppers, preserved ginger, turmeric, honey, apple cider vinegar

My helper friend made his Fire Cider last weekend and I thought I ought to get mine made soon, as it takes a month to infuse. I’d looked for horseradish at our local market on Monday and couldn’t find it. We’d found the turmeric at an Asian market, but I’d not bought enough. I’d need yellow storage onions also, as I only grew sweet onions this year.

Horseradish roots

Yellow storage onions

So when he arrived this morning, I sent him to the market for horseradish, onions, and honey. My husband was going by the Asian market and would pick up more turmeric.

German Extra Hardy garlic

I’d grown garlic this year and had plenty of big heads. I’d also preserved ginger root in alcohol and would use that.

Horseradish in apple cider vinegar

Once my helper friend returned from the market, I set him to chopping the horseradish. With my breathing issues, it wouldn’t be smart for me to work with it. He got it chopped in the food processor and covered with vinegar. I was safe!

But we found out horseradish root is too hard for the plastic parts of the processer, as we sheared off the locking square on the drive post for the upper blade. Fortunately the lower chopping blade did the job.

We had too much horseradish, as he’d bought all they had, so we decided to make pickled horseradish, and you can read about that.

While he was outside grating the horseradish for the pickle, I was peeling enough garlic for the Fire Cider to make 2 cups, chopped.

This is the recipe I use from Edible Pioneer Valley:

I make ½ gallon, not 1 cup, so everything was 8 times as much.

Once we’d finished the Pickled Horseradish, he started on the turmeric that we had. He peeled it then sliced and sent it through the food processor.

I’d finished the garlic, so he sent that through the processor. We both worked on the preserved ginger, peeling and slicing it to go through the food processor.

Preserved ginger

From bottom to top: horseradish, half the turmeric, garlic, preserved ginger

My husband came back with the turmeric and my helper friend peeled and sliced that while I cut up onions. The onions went through the processor, then the turmeric.

Right jar: onions on bottom, turmeric on top, one pepper on very bottom

Preparing to mix together

Dried cayenne peppers

We’d put the 2 cayenne peppers in each jar, but then separated them out so there would be 2 in each jar when all was mixed.

We got it all mixed together well and put it back into the two ½ gallon jars, putting the peppers in the middle. We filled the jars to the shoulders then added my raw apple cider vinegar to just below the lowest ring. The peppers, being full of air, floated to the top.

I use the plastic caps, but put a wide mouth canning lid on the jar mouth before putting the cap on. This seals it better than a plastic cap would do, but doesn’t corrode the metal rings of a normal jar cap.

The jars were put down in the root cellar where they will stay for about 1 month. My helper friend will bring his tincture press then and we will press the solids, strain it through buttercloth and put it in fresh bottles.

This post shows us using the tincture press last year.

We both ended up with yellow fingers from the turmeric, as well as yellow food processor, cutting board, etc. Bonami cleanser removes turmeric stains pretty readily.

I’ll be ready for cold and flu season in a month!