Made Salvadorian Chicha, although not quite like how mother made to avoid the chance of getting vinegar haha. It's made with a brown cane sugar processed in an old fashioned way - a company sells the cones of sugar called mi costeñita - and pineapple.
Usually you use fresh pineapple and ferment it using the skins and hopefully you get the right yeasts. However, the pineapple sold in Finland is probably not as fresh as one harvested on the spot in El Salvador.
Thanks to Alzymologist@sopuli.xyz here on Lemmy tho (rip Alzymologist Oy), I got an excellent yeast that gave me the smoothest Chicha I've ever had. Perfectly sweet, with no sourness. It came out to around 12% alcohol in only 4 days too, even though a traditional Chicha takes at least 8.
I saved some of the raw Chicha with yeast in it and am now in the process of making an apple-hibscus drink with it next.
It's easy to make too, but especially so with that yeast I got from Alzymologist. This is Jar 1 of 2, but you just dissolve the brown sugar cone in boiling water, then let that fully cool down. Then add half a pineapple for this size jar, the yeast, stir, and leave it in a dark place. I manually released the extra gas from it throughout the day, but if you have the money you can get a proper fermenting jar / bucket / lid. You can either strain and filter it fresh to get a bubbly, more sour Chicha, or if you really want to make sure you don't get vinegar and have it for longer term storage / have it taste sweeter and smoother without the bubbles and no sourness, you put it in a big metal pot with a fully sealed lid, boil it for like a minute, then turn off the heat and leave it in the pot without opening the lid until it's fully cooled down the next day. That's why I made 2 jars, to have one of each.