Vinegar may be made in the small way from grapes, gooseberries, or other sub-acid fruits, with the addition of a portion of Muscovado sugar, honey, or malt wort.

In this country vinegar is prepared from a wort obtained by the infusion of malted grain; the fermentation being excited by yeast. This vinegar is inferior in strength and purity to that from wine, and is more liable to become mouldy, or suffer the putrefactive fermentation. And this appears to be owing to the presence of a large portion of glutinous matter.

To make vinegar for domestic use, fit for keeping, it is essential that the fluid employed for that purpose should contain in every gallon at least three pounds of sugar; to allow some access of air to the vessel in which it is kept, and to keep it in a temperature rather higher than that of the atmosphere in this climate, that is about 75° to 80° Fahr. It is also essential, where a liquor already fermented is employed, to add a portion of yeast; for though any fermented liquor, if kept in a moderate temperature in an open vessel, will spontaneously run sour, or become changed to vinegar, this change is too gradual to produce this acid in perfection, and the first acetified portion turns mouldy before the last has become sour: but where the substance employed has not yet undergone fermentation, the whole process of the vinous and subsequent acetous fermentation will go on uninterruptedly with the same ferment which at first set it in action, which happens, for example, in the making vinegar from malt, or from fruit, sugar, and water.

METHOD OF MAKING GOOSEBERRY VINEGAR.

Take gooseberries, when full ripe, mash them in a tub or marble mortar, and to every quart of the mashed fruit, put three quarts of water, stir the pulp well together, let it stand 24 hours, and press it through a coarse bag. To every gallon of the strained liquor add four pounds of brown sugar, or four pounds and a half of honey, the latter is preferable; put the mixture into a barrel, which it should fill about three fourths, and add to eight or nine gallons of it one pint of good ale yeast; cover the bung hole of the cask with a slate, to exclude dust, and place the barrel in the sun in summer, or a little away from a fire in winter. The mixture will soon begin to ferment; keep up the fermentation by keeping the liquor at the same temperature, till the taste and odour indicate that the vinegar is complete. When the liquor has become perfectly clear, draw it off into bottles. It will keep much better if it be heated nearly to the boiling point, which is best accomplished by putting the bottles containing it in a saucepan with water, and causing the water to boil for about one quarter of an hour. When this has been done, remove the bottles, and when quite cold cork them. Earthenware bottles are much less liable to crack, during this process, than glass bottles.

RASPBERRY VINEGAR.

Take a pound of fine gathered red raspberries, mash them in a wooden bowl, or earthenware pan, add to the pulp a pint and a half of vinegar; make the mixture boiling hot, and strain it through a flannel bag. To every pint of liquor add a pound of lump sugar, suffer it to simmer in an earthen pipkin for about five minutes, and remove the scum as it rises. When cold put it into dry bottles.

Or, better mash the raspberries, suffer them to ferment till the juice separates from the pulpy matter; then add to a pint of the mass a pint and a half of vinegar, let it simmer for a few minutes, and strain it through a flannel.

CHILLI VINEGAR.

Put an ounce of red chillies, (capsicum) cut into small pieces, into a bottle containing a pint of vinegar, stop the bottle close, and suffer the chillies to macerate for eight or ten days, and then strain off the clear infusion. Tarragon, mint, or burnet vinegar may be made in a similar way, by suffering four ounces of fresh gathered tarragon, mint, or burnet, (or three ounces) eschallots, to macerate for eight or ten days in a quart of vinegar.