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Drink

Capital Sugar Vinegar

A fermented sugar vinegar made by boiling sugar and water, adding yeast, and allowing it to mature.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Capital Sugar Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sugar water

  1. Boil spring water and sugar together, skimming off any scum that rises.

  2. Pour the mixture into a vessel and let it cool.

Ferment

  1. Add a toast spread with yeast proportional to the quantity.

  2. Let it ferment for 1-2 days, then beat the yeast into the mixture.

  3. Transfer to a barrel with a tile or slate over the bung-hole, placing it in a sunny spot.

  4. Make it in March or early April; it will be ready by July or August.

  5. If not sour enough, let it stand for another month 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

Coarse sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into acid and alcohol, forming the vinegar base.
Yeast on toast
Supplies the microorganisms that drive the fermentation converting the sweet liquid into sour vinegar.

The step that matters

Checking sourness before bottling. Vinegar fermentation is slow and variable with temperature and sun exposure, so the mixture may need extra standing time to reach full sourness before it is safe to bottle and use.

“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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