Name: Gooseberry Vinegar
Ingredients: 2 gallons ripe yellow gooseberries; 1 gallon water; 1 pound brown sugar; 1 pound treacle; 1 tablespoon fresh yeast

Gooseberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Crush and mash the gooseberries in a large tub with a wooden pestle.
Mix the mashed gooseberries with the water.
Let the mixture ferment for three weeks, stirring two to three times daily.
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve.

Ferment and age

Add the brown sugar, treacle, and fresh yeast to the strained liquid.
Let it ferment for three to four days in the same tub, which should be well washed.
Transfer the mixture into iron‑hooped casks.
Allow it to stand for twelve months before bottling.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries: Provide the main fruit flavour and the sugars and acids that ferment into vinegar.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast, supplying fuel for fermentation.
Treacle: Adds dark sweetness and molasses flavour, and extra sugar for fermentation.
Fresh yeast: Starts a second fermentation that converts the sugars into alcohol.

“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.