To Make Gooseberry Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Crush the gooseberries in a tub with your hands.
Mix the crushed gooseberries with 2 gallons of water and let it sit for three weeks, stirring three to four times a day.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
Ferment and age
Add 1 pound of brown sugar, 1 pound of treacle, and 1 tablespoon of fresh yeast to the strained liquid.
Let it work for three to four days in the same tub, well washed.
Transfer the mixture into iron-hooped barrels and let it stand for twelve months.
After twelve months, draw it into bottles 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
- Gooseberries
- Provide the fruit flavour and the acidic, fermentable juice that the vinegar is made from.
- Brown sugar
- Feeds the fermentation, adding sweetness and body to the liquid.
- Treacle
- Adds extra fermentable sugars and a deep, molasses-like flavour.
- Fresh yeast
- Starts the fermentation that turns the sugars into alcohol and then acetic acid.
The step that matters
Stirring during the three-week soak. Stirring exposes the crushed fruit to air and keeps it mixed with the water, so the sugars and flavours are extracted evenly. Air contact also supports the early fermentation that later turns into acid.
“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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