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Rhubarb Vinegar

A fermented vinegar made from bruised rhubarb, water, brown sugar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Rhubarb Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Bruise the rhubarb stalks.

  2. Pour the bruised rhubarb into 5 gallons of water.

  3. Let it stand for 24 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Ferment

  1. Add the brown sugar and yeast.

  2. Keep the mixture warm for a month.

  3. Strain it again.

  4. Store in a cask until it is sour enough to use.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Provides the tart flavour that the finished vinegar carries.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast, which turns the sugar into alcohol and then acid.
Yeast
Starts the fermentation that converts the sugary liquid into vinegar over time.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture warm for a month. Fermentation slows in cold conditions, so a steady warm temperature lets the yeast convert the sugar fully. Without it the vinegar may stay sweet or fail to sour.

“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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