need help interpreting Australian

This is from Bill Mollison's The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition, section 1.7 Vinegars, page 12, subsection "Making Vinegars." I'll quote the whole paragraph for context, and put the phrase I'm wondering about in bold.

"To make vinegar from fruit peels or cores, place fruit wastes in a large jar and cover with lukewarm water to which has been added a little vinegar, beer, sour wine, or beet juice. Stir all together and tie a muslin top over the top to exclude vinegar flies. Leave in a warm place for two to three weeks. Strain and bottle off; sterilise to store."

To my American mind, that seems to mean water bath canning the bottled vinegar. Or does it mean pasteurizing? (Except I would assume it would be pasteurized before bottling.) Or does it mean something else? I understand the reasoning behind it, i.e. to stop the acidifying process. I'm just not sure how Bill means this to be done. Can anyone clarify?

To me it means:
In a large jar ferment the fruit cores/etc with live microbes for two weeks.
Then strain/pour the liquid filled with live microbes into the bottle.
Now sterilize/pasturize the liquid filled bottles to kill the microbes in it.

I asked Mr. Google who gave me this link:

Page 26 it says (would not let me copy/paste):

Bottle and seal the vinegar, having first briefly boiled it to sterilise, or having added a few (can't translate/long description about adding yeast, garlic, etc. so you may wish to read)

https://documentations.wiki/wXJbK/ferment-human-nutrition-mollison-pdf-permacultura-na-escola.html

Thank you for sharing and asking.

To me it reads as two separate processes. If you're going to use it relatively soon, you can just strain and bottle. If you want to store it, sterilize. I could see sterilizing the bottles as the only step needed at one point, but nowadays pasteurizing the vinegar would probably be in there too.

What I want to know is how it reads to Australians! I know from reading Kate Downham's A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen that Australian food preservation practices aren't identical to what we do in the US. So when it says 'sterilise to store,' what's their common practice for sterilization?

Anne, i couldn't get the document to load, but what you quoted makes sense. So far, Bill Mollison is the first I've read who mentions stopping the fermentation process when making vinegar. Most folks just say to put an airtight lid on it and store in the fridge.

People who bottle fruit with the Fowlers jars (similar to water bath canning) sometimes call that process 'sterilising', so he could mean water bath canning when he says that.

Or he could mean putting them into heat-sterilised bottles, which wouldn't sterilise the vinegar, but would make sure no nasties are getting in from the bottle.

Not many people in Australia make their own vinegar compared to jams, chutneys etc, so I don't think there's any standard Australian way of bottling it.

Or in saying "sterilise to store" he could just be meaning that you can use it right away as-is, but if you want to store it for longer, to water bath can it.