New member DonSr

[DonSr]

Greetings from south Louisiana. I'm new to the forum but I have made a couple batches of wine (pear and apple) in the last few years. I'm still learning and I'm anxious to get more information from the more experienced wine maker.

I do have a question. Last summer I harvested pears from a tree in my yard. I sliced the pears, left the peels on and discarded the cores. I'm not sure about the particular type of pear; it's a hard, cooking pear. I put the pears in freezer bags and they have been in the freezer for about 8 months. Will they be OK to use for wine making now? I made a batch of pear wine from the same tree 2 years ago and it came out OK. In that instance I did not freeze the pears.

Thanks,

Don

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome, Don!

I am not a fruit-wine maker, but I still think I can answer your question. Yes, they should be fine; in fact, many people freeze fruit on purpose, even if not storing, in order to help break the fruit down and more easily extract the juice.

 

[Arne]

Yep, you outta be ok. If you can get enough juice out of them, pure pear juice makes a great wine. It isn't very strong tasting so if you water it down it gets fairly weak tasting. Anyway, thaw em out, hit em with k-meta, squeeze em or start a ferment on them. Make sure you use some pectic enzime to help clear. K-meta, wait 12 hrs, pectic, wait 12 hrs, add your energizer if using it, some nutrient, check the acid if so inclined and add if needed, pitch your yeast and let the bubbles begin. Good luck with it, Arne.

 

[DonSr]

Thanks Arne and Paul. Do you recommend preparing a yeast starter? If so, is it OK to use sugar water with the yeast and nutrient, or should I use fruit juice?

Don

 

[Deezil]

Welcome to WMT, DonSr

It's actually recommended by most of us, to freeze your fruits prior to fermentation.. So the fact that they've been in the freezer for so long, isn't much of a bad thing at all. When the fruit freezes, it causes the water within the juices of the fruit to expand, making for a plethora of tears in the flesh of the fruit, and when thawed, allows the juice to run out easier

Arne is definitely on the right track, there

A yeast starter.. If done properly, it's helpful; but when its hodge-podged, it can negatively impact the overall health of the yeast colony and be a cause of a stuck fermentation later on

Get your must set up, with everything added except for the yeast nutrient; then set a pint to a quart of it aside.

Take ~1 cup of room temp water, and add your yeast packet so that it forms a single layer, and not clumping and falling to the bottom. Leave it to sit for 15 minutes, allowing each 'capsule' to rehydrate and sink on its own..

After 15 minutes, a majority of it should have rehydrated, and you can give it a swirl - at this point, you can take 1/2 cup of your set-aside must, and add it to the working yeast. Give them an hour or so, to get acclimated to those sugar/acid/etc levels, and then add another 1/2 cup of must.. This brings the ratio of water to must to 1:1, making the yeast starter levels 50% of what they'd be in the must.

I'd repeat the process two more times, with two more 1/2-cup additions, over two more hours, to bring the ratio of water : must to 1:2, and getting the yeast further-acclimated..

There's a point where this building becomes detrimental though; after performing it a few times, you get a feel for when the yeast seem to 'peak' high enough, that pitching them into the must is 'the right thing to do'

I wouldn't fool much with the extra juices, sugar and nutrient.. Nutrient in particular, can be harmful when introduced too early, unless its designed for rehydration - something like Go-Ferm

 

[seth8530]

Welcome to the forum, I am jealous of your pears...

 

[DonSr]

Stuck fermentation

After putting the pears, chemicals and yeast starter in the primary bucket I started seeing a few bubbles after about 12 hours, then it stopped. Nothing more for the next 12 hours. I made up another yeast starter, per Deezil's recipe. In just an hour or so after adding the starter I started seeing fermentation bubbling again. The fermentation bubbling has increased and continues now. And, the fermentation aroma is clearly detected when walking into the room. Since I had the stuck fermentation are there any special precautions I should take?

Thanks,
Don

 

[sour_grapes]

Well, it is not at all clear that you did, in fact, have a stuck fermentation. You may have just been fooled by the lag phase that occurs when the yeast are exponentially multiplying after pitching. I'd say it is now not possible to know.