403 
gar will have acquired sufficient strength.* It is indispen¬ 
sable to rack it as soon as it is made, it being more subject to 
get dead than wine vinegar.” 
There are several of our fruits, whose juice when fermented, 
can make tolerable vinegar, as their saccharine mucilage natu¬ 
rally disposes them to it. Gooseberries treated after the fol¬ 
lowing receipt, afford vinegar of an exquisite taste and fragrant 
smeli: — 
Bruise a certain quantity of the fruit well ripe, and mix with 
it a few raspberries ; boil water, and after it has got cold, put 
three parts of it with one of the juice of the gooseberries. 
Twenty-four hours after, filter this mixture, and to each gal¬ 
lon of it add a pound of brown sugar. In nine or ten months 
it will be fit for use. Its strength may be increased by ex¬ 
posing it to the sun. 
The making of vinegar requires, 
ist. An exposure to the action of the air. f 
2ndly. A certain degree of heat, that is, from about 65 to 
about 85 degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer j but a greater 
heat would prevent it from making. 
3rdly. A saccharine principle. 
4thly. A mucilaginous principle, and if it is possible, some 
mother, or pellicle, previously formed on the vinegar, or a 
small quantity of vinegar already made.J The liquor from 
which the vinegar is to be made should be clear, and the 
vinegar itself kept in a clean vessel. It is subject to lose its 
fragrance, and to get impaired, if it is exposed for any time to 
the air. Scheele, a celebrated chemist, thinks to have disco¬ 
vered a very simple expedient to keep it good: it consists in 
making it boil for a few minutes in a well-tinned pot, to pre¬ 
vent the terrible effects of verdigrease, or in filling glass bot¬ 
tles with it, and placing them on the fire in a pot-full of wa¬ 
ter. When the vinegar has boiled for a quarter of an hour, it 
is taken out ; and, according to him, when it has been thus 
warmed, it will keep for many years, though exposed to the 
open air. 
It is obvious, that cider, with which a great deal of water 
was mixed at the time of making, cannot by itself make good 
vinegar; but it follows from the third rule, that such vinegar 
may be rendered better by making it work again with sugar, 
honey, raisins, and the like. 
* It is understood, that the process takes place in summer, or in a warm 
room. 
•j- To impregnate the greatest part of bodies with oxygen, and in general 
almost all simple substances, there is only need to expose them to the action 
of the atmospherical air, and to keep them up to a suitable degree of heat. 
— Lavoisier, tome J. p. 204. 
J For these reasons the verjuice of crabs or sour grapes, is not, strictly 
speaking, vinegar j and, in fact, it is made use of for very different pur¬ 
poses. 
CHAPTER 
