# Pure Pear



## Arne (Mar 23, 2013)

Last fall I started a batch using pure pear juice. Picked the pears many of which were green. Probably should of let them ripen up more, but ran them through the grinder on the apple press, then pressed the juice out. Got enough for 5 gal. with nothing left over when racking it. Getting ready to rack it again, looked at it a few times over the winter, still pretty cloudy but needs to be raked off the sediment. Stole a taste and this is one of the best tasting wines I have made. Great nose, good pear flavor and even totally dry, easy to drink. Have not checked the s.g. to be sure it is totally dry but not fermenting any more. Going to rack it and see about getting it to clear. The basement is warming up some so clearing should be a little easier. Arne.


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## Deezil (Mar 24, 2013)

I cant wait to do more pear myself, its potentially one of my favorites... I mixed my 2 gallons of pear with 3 gallons of apple... And then it all underwent MLF... Talk about blow me away 

But that straight pear, that was definitely some good stuff


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## Stressbaby (Mar 24, 2013)

Got any pics?


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## Julie (Mar 24, 2013)

Arne, I have an all juice pear going as well, it is about a year and a half, up until a couple of months ago mine would not clear but I wasn't doing anything to clear it. I wasn't in a hurry to bottle this so I was letting it go to see if it would clear on its own. It didn't and about two months ago I added superklear and that cleared it right up.

I ended up with 3 gallons of finished wine. At a year old it is very good and I have been toying around with the idea of adding a little cinnamon and make it a Pear Chess Wine.


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## Arne (Mar 24, 2013)

Stressbaby said:


> Got any pics?


 
Nope, havn't taught myself how to put them on the puter. It is a light color and not clear yet. According to Julie, looks like I am going to have to clear it. Just got my new counters finished last night, now I can go back to playing with my wines. Realy going to be nice, now have another 16 feet of countertop to let the carboys sit on. Going to be able to get to all of them now. Before they were stacked one behind the other and some were pretty hard to get at. All framed with 2X4's so they ought to be plenty sturdy. Arne.


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## GreginND (Mar 24, 2013)

It sounds really good! I've never had a pure pear wine. But I'll bet some of those green pears helped give complexity to your wine.


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## Turock (Mar 24, 2013)

We make pear wine almost every year, fermenting on the fruit and skins with very little water. It always comes out with intense flavor. But pear ALWAYS needs bentonite in the primary because pear is very hard to clear, otherwise. You could try Super Kleer on it and if that doesn't work, you can bentonite your secondary. When you rack off the bulk of the bentonite, in a month or so, get it under refrigeration to and it will finish clearing for you. REALLY--bentonite the primary and you will never have the sediment issue.

Regarding cinnamon---we always make some cinnamon pear and it's awesome. Make yourself an extract using a bottle of vodka and about 8 cinnamon sticks. Shake the bottle every couple of days and in a month or two you'll have an extract to add to the pear--works nicely on apple too. Use about 1/2 ounce of it per gallon of wine.

Extract works better than using cinnnamon sticks in the carboy because the alcohol content of the wine isn't strong enough to draw out the oils and flavor. We experimented with it and the cinnamon flavor depletes down to almost nothing after it's bottled for a while when using the sticks in the carboy. The extract, however, holds up very well after bottling.


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## Julie (Mar 24, 2013)

Turock said:


> We make pear wine almost every year, fermenting on the fruit and skins with very little water. It always comes out with intense flavor. But pear ALWAYS needs bentonite in the primary because pear is very hard to clear, otherwise. You could try Super Kleer on it and if that doesn't work, you can bentonite your secondary. When you rack off the bulk of the bentonite, in a month or so, get it under refrigeration to and it will finish clearing for you. REALLY--bentonite the primary and you will never have the sediment issue.
> 
> Regarding cinnamon---we always make some cinnamon pear and it's awesome. Make yourself an extract using a bottle of vodka and about 8 cinnamon sticks. Shake the bottle every couple of days and in a month or two you'll have an extract to add to the pear--works nicely on apple too. Use about 1/2 ounce of it per gallon of wine.
> 
> Extract works better than using cinnnamon sticks in the carboy because the alcohol content of the wine isn't strong enough to draw out the oils and flavor. We experimented with it and the cinnamon flavor depletes down to almost nothing after it's bottled for a while when using the sticks in the carboy. The extract, however, holds up very well after bottling.




Thanks Turock's,

I do have a note about you always using bentonite in your fruit wines. Unfortunately, all my fruit froze last year except I was able to get some elderberries but my cherries, apples and my friend who has the pears all froze last year. Hopefully that does not happen this year and I will be adding bentonite to the primary and thanks again for the tip on the extract.


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## Polarhug (Mar 24, 2013)

I'm working on about 4 gallons of a pure pear. It's an experiment in the making! It's fermented and stabilized and today I added 3 more lbs of cut up pears to "dry hop" for a week. I'm seeing if the alcohol will pull more of the delicate aroma out as opposed to boiling it off in an F-Pac. But it already tastes mighty good!

Eventually the batch will be split into pure pear, and a pear/peppercorn using extract of pink peppercorns that I've been stewing in vodka.


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## Turock (Mar 25, 2013)

I hear ya, Julie. No cherries, very few strawberries--a real bad year. The good thing about it is an orchard not far from me couldn't sell ANY of their Bartlett pears because the frost put black streaks on the skins of all the pears. They ended up selling us 100 pounds of pears for $48.00 just to get rid of them. That was the ONLY benefit from that frost!

By the by--did you ever make the Niagara/lime??? You don't know what you're missing if you haven't done it!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Julie (Mar 25, 2013)

Lol, I'm in the process of making on. I figured I would start a thread on it here in the next month or two.


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## Turock (Mar 25, 2013)

Gee whiz Julie----we talked about it a WHOLE year ago--or more. What's the hold-up??????? (Don't mind me--just raggin' on ya.)

I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

I see you've got a concord in your list of wines--thought you didn't care for concord. In the past year, we've been experimenting with other flavors on concord that you might be interested in. We added a couple star annis to a concord---it turned out really nice. We gave it to a number of people and they thought it was a winner, so we've got a whole carboy of it going now by adding the annis to the carboy. The flavor holds up well in the bottle and it's not over-powering--just in the background.

The other one was making our own vanilla extract and adding it to the concord. Boy oh boy--that one is really excellent.

I DO like concord on its own. But the other flavors add some options to what you have in the racks. Someone on another forum said they've added cocoa to concord it turned out good. Haven't tried that one tho.


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## Julie (Mar 25, 2013)

Turock said:


> Gee whiz Julie----we talked about it a WHOLE year ago--or more. What's the hold-up??????? (Don't mind me--just raggin' on ya.)
> 
> I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.



roflmao, my problem is I acquired some grapes and juices last fall that I wasn't expecting so I didn't have any carboys. I have a niagara going right now that I want to add the lime too and hopefully be ready for summer drinking.


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## Turock (Mar 26, 2013)

Yep--that explains it--no carboys. Now you see how we ended up with 80 carboys!!! We had the same problem because we're always experimenting, doing MLF's,etc. 

Just to review---be sure to add the 2 cans of limeaide when you go to bottle the Niagara and DON'T age it on the limeaide. Mix it up, add your sorbate and meta and bottle it.


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## the_rayway (Jul 14, 2013)

I realize this is an older thread, but I have a quick question:

I'm about to start a pure pear juice wine, the juice is really more like pear puree - and I can't get an SG reading! I pop the hydrometer into it and it just glops to a halt. Should I pectic enzyme a sample and try again? 

How did you all take the initial reading with pure juice?
Thanks, Ray


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## jamesngalveston (Jul 15, 2013)

interesting question....which made me think of apple butter wine, since its like pear puree...
I think , i would add sugar and pectin and let it sit over night...then add water till the hydrometer floated.


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## Deezil (Jul 15, 2013)

You need to pectic enzyme the whole thing for 24hrs or so.. If you havent already, i would dose it with k-meta, give it 12 hours then dose it wth pectic enzyme.. Then wait as long as you can stand it or until you see signs of natural fermentation before pitching your yeast

k-meta
wait 12 hrs
pectic enzyme
wait 12-24hrs
measure and adjust sugar/acidity
pitch yeast


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## fivebk (Jul 15, 2013)

I steam juiced my pears. You don't have to mess with all the pulp this way. IMO pure juice with pear is the only way to go!

BOB


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## the_rayway (Jul 15, 2013)

Thanks everyone! 
I want to keep it 'pure pear' so I don't want to add water, especially as from what I read, pear has a very mild flavour to begin with. I think I'll give Deezil's advice a go and see what happens.

I also am now wondering if I could extrapolate the juice s.g. based off the sugar content in the nutritional information on the bottle...??


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## seth8530 (Jul 16, 2013)

the_rayway said:


> Thanks everyone!
> I want to keep it 'pure pear' so I don't want to add water, especially as from what I read, pear has a very mild flavour to begin with. I think I'll give Deezil's advice a go and see what happens.
> 
> I also am now wondering if I could extrapolate the juice s.g. based off the sugar content in the nutritional information on the bottle...??




You cant extrapolate it but you sure can calculate it. ( : If you are still interested this evening I will walk you through how to do it.


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## Julie (Jul 16, 2013)

I agree, don't add any water, pear is a light flavor wine and you lose a lot of flavor when adding water. After the must has sat the 24 hours after adding the pectic enzyme, sanitize a stainless steel strainer, place it on top and push down slightly, you should get enough juice to take a reading.


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## Runningwolf (Jul 16, 2013)

That's why it's always nice to have a refractometer. It only needs a few drops to read sugar content.


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## the_rayway (Jul 16, 2013)

Thanks for the offer Seth8530! But I'll try the clearing method first. Lol, I'm what you would call totally useless at math 

Julie - between you and Dezil I think this will work!

Runningwolf - what's a refractometer? JFGI - right?


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## saramc (Jul 17, 2013)

the_rayway said:


> I realize this is an older thread, but I have a quick question:
> 
> I'm about to start a pure pear juice wine, the juice is really more like pear puree - and I can't get an SG reading! I pop the hydrometer into it and it just glops to a halt. Should I pectic enzyme a sample and try again?
> 
> ...



Stir must then use a fine mesh....edit edit edit....since Julie already said it.
And if you do not have pectic enzyme on board you really need some. They market one specifically for pears and other high pectin fruits like apple and quince....called PearADex.


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## Winofarmer (Jul 17, 2013)

Turock said:


> We make pear wine almost every year, fermenting on the fruit and skins with very little water. It always comes out with intense flavor. But pear ALWAYS needs bentonite in the primary because pear is very hard to clear, otherwise. You could try Super Kleer on it and if that doesn't work, you can bentonite your secondary. When you rack off the bulk of the bentonite, in a month or so, get it under refrigeration to and it will finish clearing for you. REALLY--bentonite the primary and you will never have the sediment issue.
> 
> Regarding cinnamon---we always make some cinnamon pear and it's awesome. Make yourself an extract using a bottle of vodka and about 8 cinnamon sticks. Shake the bottle every couple of days and in a month or two you'll have an extract to add to the pear--works nicely on apple too. Use about 1/2 ounce of it per gallon of wine.
> 
> Extract works better than using cinnnamon sticks in the carboy because the alcohol content of the wine isn't strong enough to draw out the oils and flavor. We experimented with it and the cinnamon flavor depletes down to almost nothing after it's bottled for a while when using the sticks in the carboy. The extract, however, holds up very well after bottling.



Turock,how much and how do you prepare the Bentonite I bought a bag but has no instructions....Thanks


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## Turock (Jul 17, 2013)

One tbs per 1/2 cup hot water---this is for 5 gals. Be sure there's no lumps. Not necessary for it to stamd 24 hrs. like you do when using it in the secondary. Just pitch it once you have it mixed. Pitch on 3rd day.


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## Winofarmer (Jul 17, 2013)

Turock said:


> One tbs per 1/2 cup hot water---this is for 5 gals. Be sure there's no lumps. Not necessary for it to stamd 24 hrs. like you do when using it in the secondary. Just pitch it once you have it mixed. Pitch on 3rd day.



Thanks Turock that helps a bunch...


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## Julie (Jul 17, 2013)

saramc said:


> Stir must then use a fine mesh strainer, basic kitchen model, press it down into the thick must & liquid will fill the strainer, albeit slowly. And collect enough for the sample. And if you do not have pectic enzyme on board you really need some. They market one specifically for pears and other high pectin fruits like apple and quince....called PearADex.



OMG Sara what a great idea about using the strainer,


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## saramc (Jul 17, 2013)

Julie said:


> OMG Sara what a great idea about using the strainer,



I swear, I just completely missed your awesome response. I will go amend my awesome one. ;-)


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## Julie (Jul 18, 2013)

saramc said:


> I swear, I just completely missed your awesome response. I will go amend my awesome one. ;-)



Sorry just had to bust on you.


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## RegionRat (Sep 2, 2013)

I have 2 pear trees loaded with pears. They are still hard. I have been picking up the windfalls and putting them in the freezer. The ones on the tree are very close. I think I am going to try fermenting on the skin. I dont have a grinder, yet. I was just gonna pulse them in the food processor and put them in a strainer bag. I think the only water I will add will be enough to dissolve the sugar. From what I have read bentonite is a must?

RR


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