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Gooseberry Vinegar

A fermented vinegar made from gooseberries, water, sugar, yeast, and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Gooseberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine water and bruised gooseberries in a tub.

  2. Let it sit for 3 days, stirring often.

Ferment

  1. Strain the mixture and add 1 pound of coarse sugar for each gallon of liquid.

  2. Pour into a barrel with toast and yeast.

  3. Place in the sun and cover the bung-hole.

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 fruit flavour and the natural sugars that yeast ferments into vinegar.
Coarse sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, supporting the conversion to alcohol and then acetic acid.
Yeast
Starts the fermentation that turns the sugary liquid into alcohol.
Toast
Adds yeast nutrients and helps the fermenting liquid settle and clear.

The step that matters

Covering the bung-hole in the sun. The vessel must be sealed loosely enough to let carbon dioxide escape while keeping air and fruit flies out. Sun warmth keeps the fermentation active, but a tight seal can build pressure, and an open vessel invites spoilage microbes.

“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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