Pear Cider?

[gti1x]

wouls you do anything different? do you think it would work with fresh pears?

If that was aimed at me - yes, I think I would not bother with the sugar and go for lower alcohol, but hopefully more fruit taste. Having said that, it all went, and was enjoyed by several on our recent camping holiday. Fresh pears shouldn't be an issue. My mum used to make speedy cider and perry by cutting up the fruit and pouring on boiling water to extract the flavour/sugars. That worked very well (sorry not got the recipe and my mum stopped brewing years ago, so she probably doesn't have it either).

Oh yes, don't use wine yeast, it just doesn't compact in the bottle. Got some TC on at the moment made with proper cider yeast which made a fairly solid yeast cake in the DJ, so hopefully less floating yeast in the final, poured drink.

Hope this helps

GTI

[KevP]

Heres a little known fact, did you know that Babycham is actually a sparkling Perry?

[gti1x]

Heres a little known fact, did you know that Babycham is actually a sparkling Perry?

Er ... yes.

[danbrew]

I think I'd put a litre of apple juice in a pear only recipe to give it a bit more substance.

You might also want a bit more acidity? And plenty of pectic enzyme if you want it to clear. It can be a bit of a bugger if I remember rightly...

[ron]

Got 4 x 500gm bags of pears from Tescos condemned shelf, gonna try something.
Thought just chop them up, boil them, add sugar and a couple of chopped limes, let them cool a bit, then transfer to a couple of djs, look like too much for 1 dj, add yeast and leave to see what happens.
Does this sound OK?

[danbrew]

I wouldn't boil, I would ferment on the pulp for 5 days with a couple of teaspoons of pectolase then drain off and ferment out in a DJ.

For those who haven't considered it you can add further small amount of fruit towards the end of fermentation (at about 1.010) and more fruitiness will show through in the finished product. Or you can add more fruit juice after fermentation (and adding potassium sorbate) but before bottling. It will have to be a still cider if the latter approach is taken though.

[far9410]

hi
Ive got a pear tree which has done well this year, so thought I'd give pear cider a go. no fruit press so liquidised fruit added to sugar syrup and cider yeast. strained off liquid from pulp after one week, now ferment has stopped, any ideas, wine yeast perhaps?

[Horatio]

I make perry from my own pears and it is a bit of a long winded process to be honest. I pick the pears when ripe and then leave them spread over a bench in the shed for a few days; this will help to enhance the pear flavour. Then I pulp/scrat them and leave the pulp in sealed buckets for 48 hours; this helps the tannis to drop out. I then press the pulp to extraxct the juice and put this into sealed buckets for another 48 hours with a couple of campden tablets; this kills off any wild yeast (unless you want to ferment natuarrly that is). I then rack the juice into a wine fermenter and add S-04 as it works much beter than wine yeast for perry. After a week i rack off into several DJs and leave it under airlock until the spring. I leave it in the shed at whatever temperature the shed is at. As the weather wamrs up it will go through a second fermentation called a malolactic fermentation and this will reduce any sourness and let the sweet pear flavour come through. Apart from the campden tablet and S-04 my method comes from a very old perry and cider book and is how it was done for decades/centuries (it would have been fermented with the wild yeasts that were present on the pear skins). The end product is really nice but it is traditionally not a clear drink though which may put some off. Mine starts at about 1.056 and stops at about 1.008 if thats any help?

[oldbloke]

I did Lidl pear nectar by the turbocider method, apart from the problems caused by the vast amount of pulp it was quite good.
I wouldn't do it again, because of the pulp hassle, though