Gooseberry Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liquor
Boil the spring water and let it cool.
Combine the cooled water with bruised gooseberries in a large tub.
Let the mixture sit for 60 hours, stirring often.
Strain the mixture through a hair-bag.
Ferment in the barrel
Add 1 pound of coarse sugar for each gallon of liquor.
Transfer the mixture to a barrel.
Add a toast and yeast to the barrel.
Cover the bung-hole with a piece of slate.
Place the barrel in the sun, ensuring it is well painted and the iron hoops are firm.
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 acidity that the vinegar is built from.
- Coarse sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, which converts it into alcohol and then acetic acid.
- Yeast
- Starts the fermentation that turns the sweet liquor into alcohol.
- Spring water
- Forms the liquid base in which the fruit steeps and ferments.
The step that matters
Letting the mixture sit before straining. The fruit must steep long enough for its sugars and flavours to release into the water, but stirring often keeps the fruit in contact with air and the liquid evenly mixed, which supports a clean start to fermentation.
“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.
You might also like
Vegetable Soup350 recipes
Raspberry Vinegar214 recipes
Brown Coffee with Egg175 recipes
Blackberry Cordial129 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.