Making fruit enzyme at home or homemade moonshining LOL

I learn about making fruit enzyme and turning garbage into enzyme from an article in The Star and also a community projected mooted by DAP Tanjung Bungah. The ADun of Tanjung Bungah is an advocate of ‘save the environment’ and he kicked off a project where the housewives from Tanjung Bungah market got involved in a community thing where they turn discarded fruits and vegetables into enzyme which they pour into the rivers. (read more on the article in The Star to understand how enzyme plays a role in keeping the river clean)

So, I started with my first homemade fruit enzyme project using oranges. I dare not waste too many oranges on my first attempt as I am not sure if I will grow poisonous mouldy oranges instead. BTW, mould on oranges are very bad for our health, so always make sure the fruits you eat are not bruised and mouldy. During Chinese New Year, I rarely allow my children to eat too many mandarin oranges because the germs (mould/bacteria/virus/wateva lah) in those rotten oranges stored with the good ones can cause severe cough and diarrhea. So, I usually do not like to buy mandarin oranges as previous past bad experience has caused my son to be hospitalised.

Back to fruit enzyme. What I did was :

1) Wash the fruits I intended to use and air dry them. There should be no moisture or the bacterias will cause the batch to turn bad.

2) Use a dry, clean, glass jar.

3) Cut the fruits and put into the jar, layered with rock sugar

Keep the jar of fruits/rock sugar in a dark, cool place. On a daily basis, gently shake the bottle to get the sugar to coat the fruits nicely.

The enzyme is a-ok after the third week. Normally, people remove the fruits and keep the enzyme in the fridge. The enzyme is more like sugary syrup and can be mixed with water and taken as a refreshing drink.

However, the lazy me is too lazy to bother separating the fruits from the enzyme. So, now I have a very high alcoholic content orange liqueur. Hic hic hic. Hope I am not caught for moonshining. Brewing alcohol at home is against the law, right? Anyway, since I use only few oranges, I hardly get 200 ml of enzymes. If you ask me, I think it is a waste of time making enzymes at home. I also personally feel it is not that healthy as I wonder what is inside those enzymes. Does it have any harmful chemical contents that we are not aware of?

I use the fruit pulp to prepare dishes like roast chicken, spare ribs and sweet and sour sauce.

Meanwhile, I also make another batch of kitchen waste consisting fruit skins and vegetables. To make kitchen waste fruit enzymes, I use 3 parts vegetables/fruits, 2 parts brown sugar and 1 part water. Use a plastic jar will do as the kitchen waste enzyme is for external usage only. The plastic jar can expand so open the top every few days to release the carbon dioxide produced by the fermentation.

I notice the Singaporean housewives are very much into making fruit enzymes. They have all sorts of fruit enzymes. Me thinks this is just another kiasu, kiasi, follow the mob fad. I wonder if all those sugar content and rotting fruits will cause more harm or help? *evades rotten tomatoes from across the Causeway, oh wait, let me catch the rotten tomatoes and make kitchen waste enzymes*