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| Home made Lemony Cleaning Liquid From Lemon Peels |
It was during covid 19 lockdown I came across a news item that a lady in USA is converting her eatery's fruit peels and fruit /vegetable (raw) leftovers to cleaning liquid. I was too busy doing house hold chores and forgot about it completely till I saw an article " I got my Golden liquid". This time I could not leave it without reading complete article. It was easy way of converting fruit peels into cleaning liquid.
I was excited to learn another way of using fruit peels apart from making organic manure from it which I do with all wet garbage of my house.
It was season of mango so after eating mango discarding the seed I proceeded to make the cleaning liquid from mango peels.
After three months I did get an aromatic clear liquid which not only cleaned the tiles/floor / commode but also left the house smelling heavenly. I forgot to take pictures in the hum drum of cooking, cleaning...
In these three months I kept on collecting lemon peels in a plastic bag in freezer to avoid any fungus developing on them. I followed the same recipe as with mango peels and finally got lemony cleaning liquid. Since then I am not discarding lemon peels(being sour they can not be used for making manure) but converting them to chemical free cleaning liquid.
Preparation Time : none
Making time : 3 months
Ease of making : very very easy
Makes 750 ml. Cleaning liquid
Ingredients Required to make lemony cleaning Liquid:
- Peels of 20 lemons
- 100 gm Jaggery
- 1 lt. Water.
Direction For Making Lemony cleaning liquid:
- After squeezing juice from lemon store the peel in a bag / container in freezer. When you have almost 40 halves (after squeezing 20 lemons take out the peels from freezer and allow th to come to room temperature.
- Crush 100 gm jaggery. Put jaggery and lemon peels in a container which has volume atleast 1.5 lt.
- Add 1 lt. water, mix it nicely with the help of a stick /ladle, and cover it with lid tightly.
- Keep it in a dark place.
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| Lemon peels jaggery and water mixture |
- After one week open the lid to release the gas formed. Cover tightly give a good shake and again keep it in dark place.
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| After one week |
- In first one month open the container every week.
- After one week it will start fermenting and after 15 days the pulpy part of peel starts separating, bubbles appearing on the top layer and some white fungus may appear later on. Don't worry this is normal and not harmful.
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| After 15 days |
- Next month once in two weeks.
- In third month open it just once.
- But keep on giving a gentle shake every two three days.
- After three months the liquid will attain light colour and peels will swell and most of them will start floating. They will become very soft and mushy.
- Open the container and you will be welcomed by lemony fragrance.
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| After 3 months |
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| White fungus layer on the top of soft peels |
- At the end of three months filter the liquid with a fine sieve or muslin cloth.
- Clear liquid with lemon scent is the cleaning liquid we were looking for.
- In a separate container squeeze the remaining mushy sloid of lemon peels.
- Do not iscard the solid, it can be used as fermentation starter for next batch of any fruit peels.
- The liquid obtained by squeezing the solid will be a little murky use it to clean sink/commode.
- Store the clear lemony cleaning liquid in a container.
How to use the lemony cleaning liquid:
- Add 50 ml. Of this lemony cleaning liquid in 1lt water and mop floor with this mixture. The floor will shine and the house will be filled with amazing smell. Also it is a great disinfectant.
Tips:
- Make sure the peels are stored as such that they do not develop fungus.
- If it is summer time and you get good sunshine in your house dry the peels and use them.
Suggested variations :
- Orange/mango/banana peels can be shredded and used to make cleaning liquid.
- The process remains the same only peels of squeezed lemon peels are replaced with shredded orange / banana /mango peels.
