# Poison cactus pear wine



## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 19, 2020)

I’m new to this so I wanted to post what happened when I made wine out of cactus pear tunas. Typical Texas West Central prickly pear. 
I used a large hole grinder to mash the fruit.
I then boiled and strained the juice out.
Beautiful red color smelling of honey.
Using septic techniques I started the wine in five gallon plastic carboys.
Five campdon crushed in each, pectin enzyme, yeast nutrient, as per instructions. Added the yeast and kept at 75* in primary until fermentation was mostly completed. Racked into glass carboys with air lock for a couple more weeks then decided to taste it....
Big Mistake- I drank about four ozs. It had a wonderful smell and taste.
That night I had fever, chills and sever muscle aches in my upper and lower back. This lasted two days.
I recently had a flue shot and blamed it on it.
Another Big Mistake- week or so later I tried another 4 ozs to see how my wine was doing. 
Same thing happened.
For what ever reason this stuff is poison.
Has anyone had similar experiences with cactus wine? Using the same preparation I made watermelon wine and it’s great but needs to age.
Need a little help here please


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## hounddawg (Nov 22, 2020)

hum, recon you're allergic to them, old timers made jams & jellies from them, the pads could be boiled for a nutritious juice, the leaf pars are a diuretic filled with anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory, the fruit is red or purplish, did you burn off the spines with fire , the small ones the larger ones you scrapes off with a knife, now as to ferment or alcohol i have not a clue,,,
Dawg


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## hounddawg (Nov 22, 2020)

oh. WELCOME TO WMT
Dawg


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## franc1969 (Nov 22, 2020)

Yeah, I wouldn't think poison, unless you put something odd in with the cactus fruits. If your family/friends like the wine and have no issues with it- there you go, and they might get it all. Allergies can show up oddly and unexpectedly. I am allergic to raw cauliflower, not any other cruciferous veg. And ok with cooked, but freaked out now.


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Thanks Dawg and Franc. Yes I used a pear burner to burn off the glochids. I thought I may get be the hero of the season with family by making some good wine for them.
The first five gallon batch I gave my brother and his son a glass before I figured it was the wine had made me sick. My brother went to emergency that night. He thought he had contacted Covid. Son had the same reaction I had. Im sure not the hero with those guys!
I poured out the ten gallons and started ten more thinking the grinder had crushed the seeds and somehow released a poison. I used a different fruit prep. I just crushed the fruit and strained the juice.
It’s in the second fermenters now but I’m afraid of it.
You can bet when I try this batch I will try only a half oz to see what effect it has on me.
Prickly pear grows around here in abundance. Iv’e used it for years for jelly and syrup without issue.
The wine had a great color, smell and taste.
I’ll post how this batch turns out.
Again thanks for your reply. Ken


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## NoQuarter (Nov 22, 2020)

I grow and eat the red cactus pears yearly and usually eat the seeds too. As far as I know there is only 1 or two varieties of cactus in the world that are toxic, and they do not grow in the Americas. 
I made wine with the prickly pears for the first time last year. Took several months to clear and went through a very mucilaginous stage. Very slimy. It dropped out over a couple months but always smelled and tasted okay. I have it aging so have only tried an ounce or two at a time....Perhaps a bad bug had gotten in your ferment? I just mashed the fruit with skins after burning off spines and fermented in straining bag. Skins...seeds.. even a few spines. Time to pick my prickly pears again right now, maybe I should drink a bottle before making more wine with it...


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## Rice_Guy (Nov 22, 2020)

Prickly pear is a fairly high pH food, ie it has a risk of getting a number of food poisoning infections instead of a clean yeast culture.
The Primary Solution; acidify the must to be less than pH 3.5 with acid blend before you do any fermenting (I would target pH 3.2). This will also make the Campden (metabisulphite) more effective at preventing microbial growth. ,,, a pH meter is best for checking what the number is.
_other, _75F is a high temp for a watermelon and most high aroma fruit wines. The risk of having an infection is lower if you can stay below 65F and above 50F. Temperature is not a game killer but it helps.
cleanliness helps, especially combined with a starter with lots of yeast and overpower any low level contaminants, however ,,,, without proper pH control the shelf life will be short like a beer

(did your instructions have you add acid? how much?) you are making me want to hunt out some prickly pear to see what the acidity numbers are to predict how to safely build this wine
edit ! ! _Welcome to the wine making forum_


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Thanks No Quarter for your response.
Like you I have eaten the tunas for years with no effect on my health.

being new to winemaking it is possible I guess for a bug to have slipped in.?

this second batch should be definitive for me on cactus pear wine. I was VERY careful with sanitizing.
One thing I left out of my process is that I canned the juice using a pressure canner 12 pounds for 20 minutes and when I had processed enough juice I then proceeded with the recipe. As you know picking, burning and juicing the tunas takes time although being the country bumpkin innovative sort I’ve come up with a way to shorten that process that doesn’t involve getting the glochids in me or having to burn the pear. 
The wine produced really tasted and smelled wonderful if a little sweet I thought it was okay to taste.
Dawg could be right about my family being allergic to pear. What a shame, because metric tons of them grow within a square mile of my home here in WC Tx.
Thanks for your reply. Ken


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Rice_Guy said:


> Prickly pear is a fairly high pH food, ie it has a risk of getting a number of food poisoning infections instead of a clean yeast culture.
> The Primary Solution; acidify the must to be less than pH 3.5 with acid blend before you do any fermenting (I would target pH 3.2). This will also make the Campden (metabisulphite) more effective at preventing microbial growth. ,,, a pH meter is best for checking what the number is.
> _other, _75F is a high temp for a watermelon and most high aroma fruit wines. The risk of having an infection is lower if you can stay below 65F and above 50F. Temperature is not a game killer but it helps.
> cleanliness helps, especially combined with a starter with lots of yeast and overpower any low level contaminants, however ,,,, without proper pH control the shelf life will be short like a beer
> ...


Thanks Rice_Guy. You must be from deep SE Tx?
In answer to your question- no the recipe didn’t call for lowering the pH. As to sanitization I was reasonably careful.
Winter isn’t the time to pick pear here but I have a gallon of canned juice you can have if you send me your ground address and I can figure a way to ship it to you in these half gallon glass jars. A good recipe for prickly pear wine would be thanks enough.
Thanks for your reply


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## Rice_Guy (Nov 22, 2020)

Canning a low pH food is usually done at 15psig not 12psig. In the micro lab we run 15 minutes plus come up and cooling time. (In the factory the process normally is a total 50 minute process.)
Growing clostridium botulinum is possible with retorted high pH foods I am not a FDA canned food expert so can’t guess what the percentage kill would be with clostridium spores. There is a risk of botulism toxin which is tasteless.

The easy fix is that clostridium will not grow below pH 4.0, therefore add the acid normally put into a primary when you are canning the juice.


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Botulism would sure fit the description. Thanks again


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## NoQuarter (Nov 22, 2020)

According to my notes, my PH was 5.2 of my must before pitching yeast.... I brought it down to 3.4 with an acid blend. I think RiceGuy is correct if you did not adjust your PH correctly.


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Thanks for your reply 

I’m sending Rice Guy a sample of the canned juice to see if it’s botulism.
Thanks for your interest.


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## hounddawg (Nov 22, 2020)

Ken Paw Paw said:


> Thanks No Quarter for your response.
> Like you I have eaten the tunas for years with no effect on my health.
> 
> being new to winemaking it is possible I guess for a bug to have slipped in.?
> ...


ah, you didn't mention that, with that info I'd bet @riceguy is right, i have a an American 30qt canner, love canning, but 1 misstep and your in trouble, both IMHO your pound should be 15 minutes and your time after the jigglier started you needed to go at least 30 minutes, 
Dawg


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Live and learn. I’ve been canning for years also. I just didn’t think with juice for the wine I would have to cook as long. You guys are probably right. Thanks Dawg


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## hounddawg (Nov 22, 2020)

hum, i just read up on them it calls for them to be boiled for 20 minutes, as well the pale or body should be skinned due to the skin tasting very bad, but the inner meat being sweet but kinda bland, and they can be safely canned in a water bath canner, no need for a presser canner, , 
Dawg


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Dawg thanks for your post and following this thread.
I canned the juice because I needed more time to pick and process more tunas to make the ten gallon batch I wanted to make. To harvest the juice I burned the stickers off, washed the fruit then crushed it. I boiled the crushed fruit with skin for twenty minutes or more to soften so I could strain it. As far as the skin tasting bad? The wine I made tasted and smelled great. Rich and sweet like a desert wine or port. I don’t think I would want it to taste differently. This second batch tastes the same way but I’m not going to try drinking it. I wish I knew what went wrong. Could be the skin of the tunas released a poison? I thought maybe the grinding crushed some seeds and released something bad? Why wine and not jelly or syrup? I’ve searched the internet over looking for the reason things went very wrong or if anyone else has encountered this problem.
You guys have probably come up with the answer. Either I’m allergic somehow to the wine and not to the jelly or syrup or Clostridium spoors were activated with the anaerobic of canning and deposited the toxins in the wine.
This will be 21 gallons of wine I’ve poured out.
Next batch is going to be pineapple. Hope my
Luck is better this time or I need to play a different sport.
Thanks again


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## hounddawg (Nov 22, 2020)

Ken Paw Paw said:


> Dawg thanks for your post and following this thread.
> I canned the juice because I needed more time to pick and process more tunas to make the ten gallon batch I wanted to make. To harvest the juice I burned the stickers off, washed the fruit then crushed it. I boiled the crushed fruit with skin for twenty minutes or more to soften so I could strain it. As far as the skin tasting bad? The wine I made tasted and smelled great. Rich and sweet like a desert wine or port. I don’t think I would want it to taste differently. This second batch tastes the same way but I’m not going to try drinking it. I wish I knew what went wrong. Could be the skin of the tunas released a poison? I thought maybe the grinding crushed some seeds and released something bad? Why wine and not jelly or syrup? I’ve searched the internet over looking for the reason things went very wrong or if anyone else has encountered this problem.
> You guys have probably come up with the answer. Either I’m allergic somehow to the wine and not to the jelly or syrup or Clostridium spoors were activated with the anaerobic of canning and deposited the toxins in the wine.
> This will be 21 gallons of wine I’ve poured out.
> ...


no the seeds are eatable, if you had a half pint jar I'd be more then happy to try it, I've been online and in my survivalist books, and can find no reason for your outcome, how did you can them water bath, presser ? did you can them in canning jars and if so did the dome lids suck down, from my survivalist books prickly pear can be stored in about anyway, short term thrown in a dark cool corner, striped and dried, etc., etc., they are extremely forgiving hard times food sconce, 
Dawg

PS please keep me informed on what you find out, 
Richard


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## hounddawg (Nov 22, 2020)

oh the skin tasting bad was from a eating for survival point of view only,, hehe getting old and soft when you worry about taste in a survival situation,, lol
Dawg


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 22, 2020)

Sure Dawg send me your ground address and I’ll send you a half pint. I’m going into town tomorrow to send Rice Guy some. I advise caution if you decide to taste it. I used a pressure canner for the juice. I’ll send you both the wine and juice if you wish.


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## DizzyIzzy (Nov 23, 2020)

Ken Paw Paw said:


> Thanks Dawg and Franc. Yes I used a pear burner to burn off the glochids. I thought I may get be the hero of the season with family by making some good wine for them.
> The first five gallon batch I gave my brother and his son a glass before I figured it was the wine had made me sick. My brother went to emergency that night. He thought he had contacted Covid. Son had the same reaction I had. Im sure not the hero with those guys!
> I poured out the ten gallons and started ten more thinking the grinder had crushed the seeds and somehow released a poison. I used a different fruit prep. I just crushed the fruit and strained the juice.
> It’s in the second fermenters now but I’m afraid of it.
> ...


I don't know whether you are courageous or foolish to try it again. If it were me I could contact the local health department or county extension agent and ask their advice. Good luck......................................................................................DizzyIzzy


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 23, 2020)

Guess I’m foolish or maybe hardheaded. But your advise is good. Making some pineapple wine starting tomorrow. If I can’t get for sure answers on the cactus pear, I’m done with them. No one seems to know much about them but every part of the plant is edible is what the internet says. Thanks for your input Dizzy. I’ve sent some of the juice to a couple of WT members. Waiting on their reply’s. Thanks again for your post.


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## NoQuarter (Nov 23, 2020)

Ken Paw Paw said:


> Guess I’m foolish or maybe hardheaded. But your advise is good. Making some pineapple wine starting tomorrow. If I can’t get for sure answers on the cactus pear, I’m done with them. No one seems to know much about them but every part of the plant is edible is what the internet says. Thanks for your input Dizzy. I’ve sent some of the juice to a couple of WT members. Waiting on their reply’s. Thanks again for your post.


Had 2 glasses last night. Quite good, a little thin, maybe be a little glycerin needed. Color of pink lemonade. 1 year old. I'm still thinking your PH let some bad boys grow? Think I'll add some sultanas or maybe even some bananas this to me for more body.


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 23, 2020)

Thanks for your post NoQuarter. I messed up some how. I’m glad yours turned out well so maybe there’s hope out there. Everyone in the know thinks it’s the pH. I can fix that.
I’ll have to dump this last ten gallon batch. Breaks my heart because it does taste very good. Thanks again


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## Rice_Guy (Nov 25, 2020)

FYI: the juice from CACTUS PEARs.
first of all this is an exceptionally intense beautiful red/ clean juice. Flavor as sent is hard to describe, green vegetable notes/ not fruity. It will make a neat wine!


Gravity . .1.026
pH . . . . . 4.69
TA . . . . . .0.12%


_your question about a recipe ,, how much acid for a cactus pear wine? 
. . . suggested target for a country wine . . . ._
pH 3.2 to 3.6 with a TA of 0.65 to 0.75% , , , a dry wine
pH 3.0 to 3.5 with a TA of 0.7 to 0.85%, , , , a sweet table wine
* acid is roughly 4 grams per level teaspoonful therefore I would add at least four and likely as much as six teaspoons per gallon of this juice. ,,, add before you can the juice, the food plant rules are if the pH is below 4.0 you could use a boiling water bath.
* metabisulphite in the primary I use up to .2 gram per gallon and racking 0.1 gram per gallon, (a Campden tablet is also metabisulphite and is good for a five or six gallon carboy)
* sugar on this sample was approximately 6.25% and my goal would bring it up to a gravity of 1.090, AKA 25 or 26%
,,,, cactus is an interesting project ,,,,


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## Ken Paw Paw (Nov 25, 2020)

Thanks I’m writing this down!
Learning more and more as I follow the threads.
Thanks again


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## Rice_Guy (Dec 4, 2020)

I was playing with the graphics program and the graphic above looks better on a log scale. The logic here is that pH is a measure of the log of the acid ion (hydronium) therefore it should be one log scale against another log scale.


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## Jarll5 (Sep 11, 2021)

Did you figure out what was wrong? I drank some prickly pear wine yesterday and this happened to me last night!! I woke up at midnight with chills. And the at 3 am I woke up again with fever, aches, and chills. I thought for sure the Corona got me yet again. But I feel fine this morning after taking naproxen. Really weird…


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## Rice_Guy (Sep 11, 2021)

@Ken Paw Paw has not been on since April. however,,, As a food industry person I am interested in how the wine was put together. ,,, Where can you find it?

@Jarll5 . . . Hope that you are OK.


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## Jarll5 (Sep 12, 2021)

Rice_Guy said:


> @Ken Paw Paw has not been on since April. however,,, As a food industry person I am interested in how the wine was put together. ,,, Where can you find it?
> 
> @Jarll5 . . . Hope that you are OK.



I honestly do not know. It was given to me. It is supposed to be good for diabetics to help lower blood sugars and A1C. The man that gave it to me swears by it! He is an older man and is very healthy. He takes no meds for his diabetes, just drinks this wine. I was sick that night but felt great by morning. And I went all day without taking meds for my diabetes. Very strange but the fever,chills,aches scared me!


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## Jarll5 (Sep 12, 2021)

I just found out my Memaw makes this regularly. I will see if I can find out how she makes it. It would be an old country style way for sure.


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## KevinAZ (Sep 22, 2021)

Hey All,

Sorry to bump a nearly 1-year-old thread, but I think this is the right place to post my questions and experiences.

So I tried making prickly pear wine this year. I'm very new to winemaking and I know I made a few mistakes, but I think I recovered. Here's what happened:


I started out with 4.5 gallons of fruit (all from the same cactus believe it or not). I actually picked 8.5 gallons from this one cactus but gave the other 4 gallons to my Father-in-Law. He made juice by removing the seeds and scraping the skins. It was really good juice too!
I quartered the tunas and left the spines and skin on. I was planning on back-sweetening a little since the juice my FIL gave me tasted so much better with a tiny amount of sweetener in it.
I added 12 lbs of sugar, 4 gallons of water, 12 tsp Acid Blend, 1.5 tsp pectic enzyme, 4.5 tsp yeast energizer, ***1.5 tsp K-Meta (I know I used too much, but thankfully the yeast started just fine), and then the next day I pitched in a packet of Red Star Premier Blanc Yeast.
I punched down once daily for about a week and then took it off the skins. *** I forgot to sterilize the tool once before punching down too, but I did wash it every day immediately after use. 
Let it sit for about 2 weeks to clear some and racked it again
Added Chitosan and Kitosel (Don't know how to spell those). I let the clearing chems do their thing and racked it again in about a week.
So now I'm thinking about back-sweetening and finishing the wine. I did some taste tests and decided on adding about 750ml of a prickly pear syrup they sell around here as the sweetener. So I added 3 tsp K-Sorbate and the syrup and let it set about another week. (The bottle of syrup ended up only being about 600ml, but I thought it'd still work). I also added about 25 ml of lemon juice to brighten the flavor. It worked well in the test, so why not?
On to bottling and trouble...
So here's where things didn't go as planned. ***I started bottling and noticed that the wine was bubbling as it was put in via a vacuum pump. I thought this was weird since I'd kept the wine under negative pressure for weeks on end, but I bottled it anyway. When I was bottling it tasted different than when I tested it. The alcohol taste was much stronger and the prickly pear taste was weaker. I'm not sure if there was another chemical taste in there or not, but it wasn't the great thing I'd tasted a week before. So I think my syrup fermented.  I had two large glasses during and after bottling and my wife had some too (not as much). 

And that night, this past Sunday, I ended up in the ER. The only thing I had eaten differently than anyone else was the two large glasses of wine. I had uncontrollable chills, no fever, and ended up vomiting excessively. The ER didn't diagnose me with anything and just said to drink plenty of fluids and take some Tylenol and Ibuprofin together. I was out of work for two days and now I'm scared to drink the wine.

Sorry for the long posts, but I wanted to give accurate info up front to speed up the whole "Did you do this" part of asking a question.

Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks in advance for even just taking the time to read this, and even more if you respond.

Sincerely,
KevinAZ
-


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## Bliorg (Sep 23, 2021)

My dad lives in west central Texas. They have a bumper crop of prickly pear this year, and he's offering to get me as much juice as I'd like to make some wine. I think, after reading this thread, Imma pass on it for now. The repeated experience with it seems like the risk, until the kinks have been worked out, aren't worth it.

Am following this thread with interest.


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## Bliorg (Sep 23, 2021)

I don't think this has been noted yet (apologies if it has) but Jack Keller, in his prickly pear recipe, mentioned that it's a known allergen for ~1% of the population. He linked to the FDA database of toxic plants, but the link is broken. I found the link on FDA's website, but _that _link is broken. I'll keep searching for mirror links...


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## franc1969 (Sep 23, 2021)

There are a couple of things that may he going on with prickly pear wine, and it is hard to suss it all out without lots of specific detail on each batch (and human) with an issue. There's the issue of what the pH is of the juice, was there kmeta or other sulfur, aging, all that. Wine could have been made improperly, could be fine. Humans can be allergic to cactus or fruits, although more likely have a reaction to glochid hairs or spines. There's a question of which Opuntia species everyone is dealing with, and whether all compounds are the same. Several studies show prickly pear is a MAO inhibitor, which could pose an issue with tyramine- raises blood pressure and is found in aged foods and alcohol. Although I've seen websites claiming antihistamine action along with the antidiabetic action. 
The symptoms of sudden high blood pressure are similar to what has been discussed here, but so are botulism and allergy symptoms.


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## Bliorg (Sep 28, 2021)

Rice_Guy said:


> I was playing with the graphics program and the graphic above looks better on a log scale. The logic here is that pH is a measure of the log of the acid ion (hydronium) therefore it should be one log scale against another log scale.View attachment 69092


Am I reading this correctly, that with a starting pH of 4.69, and a target pH of 3.2, add _35 grams_ acid blend _per gallon_?

[EDIT] So, dad is sending me some juice. I *think* it was burned, peeled, mashed and strained - will have to get more detail on that. Not boiled, though. It's being frozen and shipped on dry ice. When I get it, it will go into the freezer until I have time and an idea what to do with it.

Have read a bunch of threads, on this site and others (like this'n), and aside from viscosity issues, no one reports any illness/sickness/reaction to it. I'm not sure what to think on this. But I'm thinking I'll end up simmering the thawed juice about 15 minutes in an attempt to mitigate the "sliminess" that some report, adjust pH to about 3.2, and probably base my recipe on the one linked above. As a starting point.

Still shaking my head on this...


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## Rice_Guy (Sep 28, 2021)

Many fruits are fairly high in pectin and heating causes this to thicken. Testing one pear is worth while first, ,,, Humm, I might still have one cactus pear in the freezer.


Bliorg said:


> . But I'm thinking I'll end up simmering the thawed juice about 15 minutes in an attempt to mitigate the "sliminess" that some report, adjust pH to about 3.2, and probably base my recipe on the one linked above. As a starting point.


this has been an interesting thread, fishing a bit in Texas A&M or university of Arizona food science ought to give some allergen info


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## Bliorg (Sep 28, 2021)

Rice_Guy said:


> Many fruits are fairly high in pectin and heating causes this to thicken. Testing one pear is worth while first, ,,, Humm, I might still have one cactus pear in the freezer.
> 
> this has been an interesting thread, fishing a bit in Texas A&M or university of Arizona food science ought to give some allergen info


I'm a big fan of Ashley at PracticalSelfReliance.com. She doesn't quote sources, but is usually pretty spot on with her anecdotal information about preservation. She states (in this post about prickly pear jelly) that prickly pears do *not* naturally contain any pectin. There's some interesting stuff in there, too - boiling to juice, using lemon juice to bring the juice to a pH acceptable for canning, or just to bring out the flavor of the fruit. Some things to consider in formulating the wine.


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