Gooseberry Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Crush the ripe gooseberries in a tub.
To every peck of gooseberries, add 2 gallons of good water and mix well.
Let the mixture work for three weeks, stirring three to four times a day.
Strain the liquor through a fine sieve.
Add sweeteners and ferment
Add 1 pound of brown sugar, 1 pound of treacle, and 1 tablespoon of fresh barm to every gallon of strained liquid.
Work the mixture for three to four days in the same tub.
Age and bottle
Transfer into iron-hooped barrels and let it stand for twelve months before bottling.
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
- Supply the fruit flavour and the acidity that the vinegar is built on.
- Brown sugar
- Provides sweetness and fermentable sugar for the yeast to convert.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness, dark colour and extra fermentable sugar with a rich flavour.
- Barm
- Live yeast that converts the sugars into alcohol, the first step toward vinegar.
The step that matters
Stirring during the three-week working period. Stirring three to four times a day keeps air moving through the mixture and the fruit evenly distributed. Air exposure lets acetic acid bacteria convert the alcohol into acetic acid, so neglecting it can slow or stall the souring.
“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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