I'm making syrups from scavenged fruit but for what?

I am making syrups from banannas, apricots,  oranges and apples.

I layer fruit and sugar in jars and pour off the juices that are drawn off.
There is an amazing amount of liquid that is drawn off.

I might dehydrating the left over pulp, but other than making  drinks, what should I do with the syrups?

Booze?
Vinegar?
Boil down into actual syrups?

I realize the goofiness of making food with no nutritional value or known end use, but that's just who I am.

BBQ sauces

Too many questions:
1. Can you solar dehydrate, or do you have to use electricity in your ecosystem? If you can mostly or totally solar dehydrate (some people just use trays in their vehicles and it works - not in my climate...) have you considered dehydrating the fruit directly, rather than using sugar to remove a lot of the moisture first? That said, dehydrating might be much easier after starting with a syrup approach first.

2. Do you bake? Just because a recipe calls for raisins, doesn't mean anyone will complain if you used home-dried apricot instead. At least not in my household! I've got a recipe that calls for 1/2 cup each of 4 different dried fruits and I can mix and match depending on what I've got handy.

3. Are you low enough in humidity that you can easily get the syrup *really* thick? Like honey thick? Lots of recipes call for honey which where I live is outrageously expensive for the good stuff (and I'm spoiled, so I'd prefer not to have to go back to the overly industrial version.)

I'll be impatiently waiting for the results of these experiments, William! I don't think there's one right answer. If worse comes to worse, use the syrup to inoculate your biochar. That would totally attract microbes!

Non-alcoholic drinks, unless they begin to ferment. If you want booze, you can speed up the process by adding yeasts; different yeasts cause different flavor development. Left as a simple syrup, they'll make great mixers, for cocktails & mocktails, or to add a different twist to lemonade or almost any type of tea.

I really like Robert's bbq sauce idea. One of my favorites is a zesty peach bbq sauce, that I buy in one of the local Mennonite stores. Sweet, fruity syrups could probably be used in pickling various veggies, too.

Reduced to a thick syrup, especially if you blend in some of the pureed fruit, they'd be amazing over ice cream, or as a glaze for sturdy cakes, muffins, or fruit breads. Think thickened orange syrup as a glaze over zucchini bread, or apple glaze over cinnamon muffins or the heavier cake donuts. I think that unless a thickener like arrowroot powder or cornstarch were added, these syrups would turn the light, fluffy yeast donuts (the classic, pale glazed donut type dough) to mush. But, lightly used on the heavier cake type donuts, would add a nice level of moisture that they can sometimes lack.

Brought to a boil, a bit of unflavored gelatin can turn them into gummies or softer gels, for summer fruit salads. A bit of glycerine added, and if you like, some of that gelatin, and you have a lovely base for popcicles or granitas. Again, blending in some of the pureed fruit will turn them into sorbet...

I would boil the liquid and leftover pulp  down for a syrup/sauce for ice cream cake, and cobblers.

That jar looks really yummy.

i assume you have drinks covered, but this stuff would make a fabulous addition to kombucha (or a second ferment of kombucha).
Add it to applesauce and boil it down to make flavored apple butter (or pumpkin)
I recently used something similar to rehydrate dried fruit to make a compote, and it was amazing.
Use it as the liquid for cooking oatmeal or whatever dry cereal grain you might like.
or as the liquid in any kind of cake, muffin, or quick bread.
put some unflavored gelatin in it and make gelatin (or add some vodka to that and make jello shots!)

I'd also make vinegar out of at least some of it.

Geeze you guys are good!
I'm about to get seriously crazy with these ideas!
Bbq sauce ftw!
Even if I just glazed meat on the grill, the boost to flavor would be excellent!
Gummies and Popsicles  both are amazing ideas.
I wonder if they could become shaved ice?

Our humidity averages 73% in the summer.
There are some solar dehydrator designs that can work here, but not the usual kind.
To boil off the syrups  maybe I'll use a TLUD , and make biochar at the same time.

William Bronson wrote: Geeze you guys are good!
I'm about to get seriously crazy with these ideas!
Bbq sauce ftw!
Even if I just glazed meat on the grill, the boost to flavor would be excellent!
Gummies and Popsicles  both are amazing ideas.
I wonder if they could become shaved ice?

Our humidity averages 73% in the summer.
There are some solar dehydrator designs that can work here, but not the usual kind.
To boil off the syrups  maybe I'll use a TLUD , and make biochar at the same time.

Shaved ice is very, very similar to granita, so yup, I'm sure they could!

I'm no expert, but it seems like extra sugar, extra acid, or extra salt (or combinations thereof) are essential in canning and preserving.

So if you can replace an external input with one you make yourself, maybe you're ahead of the game. Cast off those supply chains!

I ran out of bandwidth for bottling these syrups, so I topped off the sugar and added some unpasteurized apple cider vinegar to each .
I know vingar bugs need  alcohol , should I pitch some yeast in as well?

I looked into it.
Normally people just let nature do it's thing.
So I  be doing something different of course!
I ordered some cider suitable yeast.
I plan on immersion blending the contents of the jars and then I will pitch the yeast.
The jars will be set up to favor the vinegar mother over the yeast but I'm hoping the yeast will still do its thing.
I will probably get distracted and forget about it and then something odd will happen.
I'm pretty certain someone in my house will let me know if it gets too funky...

Home-made balsamic vinegar substitute: I'm a big salad eater and love serving salads to friends, but was always buying balsamic vinegar, which is imported from a different continent. This year I kinda accidentally made something that approximates the sweet-sour qualities of balsamic vinegar. We'd soaked some dried apricots, which generate a syrup of their own. I mixed some of that syrup with some of my homemade (very sour) vinegar and wow, it was great for salad, yay! It won't use up a great volume of your syrup but it's good stuff if you like making salad dressing.

Homemade vinegar: Any fruit, if you juice it down or puree it, will likely have enough natural sugars to make vinegar. If you have enough fruit you don't need to add sugar. If you don't have enough fruit, you can add sugar and water, but the fruity flavor of the vinegar will be weaker. My vinegar making experience is mostly from local barley wine (not something you'll be getting there, haha!) and it's pretty damn sour. I add a splash of commercial live apple cider vinegar as a starter, and try to remember to aerate the mix daily at first, and weekly after it's finished the stage of making yeasty scum on top. Actually, aerating it frequently seems to make a successful batch of vinegar even if no starter was added.

The home-made vinegar process is like this. First there's an anaerobic process where yeasts convert the starches and sugars to alcohol. Then there's an aerobic process where acetobacter bacteria convert the alcohol to acetic acid (vinegar). If you start with something that is of the sweetness and density of fruit juice or watery fruit pulp, the process will happen and the micro-organisms will likely come on their own without adding a starter. The yeast process and acetobacter process can happen simultaneously, or you can do it in two stages: First keep the fruity liquid airtight (with a way to release the CO2) first for a while till it goes boozy; then start stirring it daily to aerate till the yeasty scum layer on top slows down; then stir it every few days or week for another month or three till it stops making sludge and changing; at which point if it smells and tastes like vinegar, it is. I strain it a couple of  times through the whole process, though perhaps it's not actually needed till the end. I just like messing with it.

Yesterday I found enough banannas   to fill two buckets.
The process of straining syrup from  fruit was not fun, which is why I stopped collecting it and pushed the remaining fruits towards becoming vinegar.
But I like the options that syrup offers, so today I acquired two glass carafes, complete with spigots.
As I peeled the bananas I stuffed them into the jars and squished them down.
I topped each with a thick layer of white sugar.
Every few days I will draw off the liquid and freeze it.
When production slows down I'll pitch some yeast and some ACV and maybe warm it with an electric germination pad.

Nice carafes you found! I hope they don't just clog up. Very interested to see how this goes!

William Bronson wrote:
The process of straining syrup from  fruit was not fun, which is why I stopped collecting it and pushed the remaining fruits towards becoming vinegar.
But I like the options that syrup offers...

Have you tried a hand-cranked food mill? aka foley mill or mouli mill. I use mine for making tomato puree, apple sauce, fruit juices and smooth jams. I find it works best if the fruit is very soft already, so I generally cook the fruit down first till it's all soft. I don't add any water, just start with the juiciest tomatoes or apricots or other fruit in the bottom of the pot, in halves or big chunks. As they cook down and release juice I add the rest. For apples I do have to start the bottom of the pot with a little water or juice, but I keep that as minimal as possible.

The hand cranked food mill is acceptable if I'm doing only a bucket or two full of fruit in a day. If I were doing much more than that (alone) I'd probably wish to upgrade to something electric. If you're getting so much fruit, maybe you'd want to get a juicer of some kind, and then you could can up jars of juice with no sugar or less sugar. I wonder how much syrup you're really going to be able to use in a year.

Jay,   I figure there won't be any clog a bit of wire can't fix.
Rebecca,  I have come to think of sugar as rather like alcohol.
Its something to be consumed sparingly if at all.
This includes fruit juices as well as cane sugar.

That being said, I have a long term goal of being a small scale supplier of "artisanal"  drinks.
Having witnessed fancy food trucks successfully selling "mexican cokes" for  two dollars or more, I can't help thinking I can offer a superior   sugar water experience!

I tasted the syrup and I was right, I can offer a superior sygar water experience!
The product is very good mixed with iced water , too good really, as I have drank many a glass.

Oh, the IDEAS you're giving me, William!! Banana beverages, galore! Mixed with coconut milk, a few cubes of frozen of pineapple juice, and a shot of rum or vodka... perfect, for a relaxing break in the hammock!

I'm addicted.
I have been drinking the banana syrup as it forms, drawing off a quarter of a glass and filling the rest with cool water.
It's pretty much a haymkers punch or scrub at this point, very refreshing on these hot days.
I just started a new jar with sour/hard prematurely picked pears.
I picked these pears early because something else was getting to them.
I wish I had more jars with taps!

Here's the pears.
We added a bit of cinnamon and about 4 cloves.