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Time: To remain in the cask 9 months.
Seasonable: This should be made the end of June or the beginning of July, when gooseberries are ripe and plentiful.

Ingredients
  1. 2 pecks of crystal gooseberries
  2. 6 gallons of water
  3. 12 lbs. of foots sugar of the coarsest brown quality
Directions
  • Mash the gooseberries (which should be quite ripe) in a tub with a mallet
  • Put to them the water nearly milk-warm
  • Let this stand 24 hours
  • Strain it through a sieve, and put the sugar to it
  • Mix it well, and tun it
    • These proportions are for a 9-gallon cask; and if it be not quite full, more water must be added. Let the mixture be stirred from the bottom of the cask two or three times daily for three or four days, to assist the melting of the sugar; then paste a piece of linen cloth over the bunghole, and set the cask in a warm place, but not in the sun; any corner of a warm kitchen is the best situation for it. The following spring it should be drawn off into stone bottles, and the vinegar will be fit for use twelve months after it is made. This will be found a most excellent preparation, greatly superior to much that is sold under the name of the best white wine vinegar. Many years' experience has proved that pickle made with this vinegar will keep, when bought vinegar will not preserve the ingredients. The cost per gallon is merely nominal, especially to those who reside in the country and grow their own gooseberries; the coarse sugar is then the only ingredient to be purchased.
    Source: The Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton (1859)
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