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Drink

Gooseberry Vinegar

A vinegar made by fermenting gooseberries with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Gooseberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the must

  1. Mash the gooseberries with a mallet in a tub; add nearly milk-warm water; let stand 24 hours; strain through a sieve; add sugar; mix well and turn.

Ferment

  1. Stir the mixture from the bottom of the cask two or three times daily for three or four days to aid sugar melting; then cover the bunghole with a linen cloth and place the cask in a warm, shaded location.

Bottle and age

  1. In the following spring, draw the vinegar into stone bottles; it will be ready for use after twelve months.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit flavour and the sugars that ferment into vinegar.
Sugar (in the method)
Feeds the fermentation, which converts it into alcohol and then acetic acid.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture from the bottom of the cask. Stirring keeps the sugar dissolving and distributes yeast and oxygen through the liquid, so fermentation proceeds evenly rather than stalling or spoiling at the surface.

“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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