To Make Gooseberry Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mash
Crush the ripe gooseberries in a tub.
Add 2 gallons of water for every peck of gooseberries and mix well.
Let the mixture work for three weeks, stirring three to four times a day.
Make the vinegar
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.
Add 1 pound of brown sugar, 1 pound of treacle, and 1 tablespoon of fresh barm for every gallon.
Let it work for three to four days in the same tub.
Age and bottle
Transfer to iron-hooped barrels and let it stand for twelve months.
Bottle for use.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Ripe gooseberries
- Provide the fruit flavour and acidity that the fermentation turns into vinegar.
- Brown sugar
- Feeds the fermentation, supplying sugar for the yeast and bacteria to convert.
- Treacle
- Adds more fermentable sugar and a deeper, molasses-like flavour to the vinegar.
- Fresh barm
- Supplies live yeast to start the fermentation that turns the sugars into alcohol.
The step that matters
Let the mixture work for three weeks, stirring three to four times a day. Stirring keeps the crushed fruit in contact with air, which the vinegar bacteria need to convert alcohol into acetic acid. Too little air slows souring or lets the mash spoil.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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