Gooseberry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Gather gooseberries in a dry season when they are half ripe.
Bruise them in a tub with a wooden mallet.
Put the bruised gooseberries into a cloth made of horse-hair and press them without breaking the seeds.
Combine the pressed juice with the remaining bruised gooseberries.
Ferment and clear
Add 3 pounds of powdered sugar for every gallon of juice and stir until dissolved.
Transfer the mixture into a vessel, filling it completely.
If the vessel holds about 10-12 gallons, let it stand for 2-3 weeks; for 20 gallons, let it stand for 4-5 weeks in a cool place.
Draw off the wine from the lees.
Return the clear liquid to the vessel and let it stand for 3 months if it's about 3 gallons, or 4-5 months if it's 20 gallons, then bottle it.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Gooseberries
- Provide the juice and fruit flavour that the wine is built on.
- Powdered sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and sets the wine's sweetness and alcohol level.
The step that matters
Pressing without breaking the seeds. Gooseberry seeds can release bitter, harsh compounds into the juice when crushed, so pressing gently keeps the wine smoother.
“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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