Pear Wine

[Runningwolf]

Honestly I don't know. I press everything I get and use pure juice, no water. Later I might blend a little apple or crabapple into it. I don't make an fpack.

 

[barbiek]

K, I am going with straight pear juice that's the plan was just wondering how many gal I would get from the fruit. I filled 2 big strainer bags full of fruit couldn't.fit anymore then once they thawed was able to put the remaining in the 30 gal brute wish I had taken a pic of the brute filled with the fruit! The sg is 1040 before adding any sugar was able to squeeze the juice out with my hands today I had added some pectin enzyme to fruit before freezing to prevent browning and added lallzyme C-Max to the juice. I'll have at least 6 gal of pure pear juice if not more when said and done

 

[chasemandingo]

Hey all I had a question to run by you guys....I have 42lbs of cored, chunked frozen pears in a bag in the primary. I dosed them with meta, ascorbic acid and two separate doses of pectinase over the last two days.....they have given up enough juice to completely submerge the pears which has allowed for very little browning of the fruit and my juice is a beautiful pale straw almost colorless with an S.G. of 1.046 at 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The pears have already given up around 2 gallons of pure juice but my chunks are big and spongey. After this latest pectinase addition I think I will need to grind them up. I'm wondering if you think a hand crank meat grind would work? I have a small food processor but that would literally take 2 hrs to go through all those pears.....

 

[Turock]

The best thing to do is to bag the fruit using paint straining bags that you can buy at Home Depot,etc. That way, you'll contain all the chunks. You don't want to just remove them because all that pulp has a lot of flavor to add to the resulting wine. Trying to grind them all up, as an alternative, is not necessary--just bag the whole mess.

 

[chasemandingo]

It is bagged in nylon straining bag, just really big chunks that are woody and sponge like. You think the yeast, pectinase and daily squeezing will result in enough liquid extraction? I would have returned the ground pears to the bag and primary for fermentation. I have blanc soft, fermaid o, booster blanc and go ferm ready to go with some 71b once my temp hits the mid 60s.

 

[Zog]

I have 7 gallons of pear fermenting in the cellar right now. Roughly equal parts Comice, Bartlett and Bosc. The Bartletts were ripe in early September so I froze them. When thawed and pressed they had a better yield than the fresh grated pears. I have a bladder press. Brix of the blend was about 11.5, which I brought up to 23 with sugar. Scottzyme, FT Blanc Soft and D47 added. Smells and tastes very promising.

 

[Runningwolf]

Why do you feel the need to grind them. If they are that soft and in a strainer bag, why not just squeeze them or press?

 

[chasemandingo]

I added sugar, booster blance and blanc soft tannin this a.m. and squeezed the pears. They are now soft enough to press as you suggest. Now I need to find a press to press them post fermentation. Gonna add yeast tonight when I get home.....I have QA23, D47 and 71B.....I was leaning towards 71B as it seems highly recommended.

 

[Runningwolf]

Most people press before fermentation is complete. If the pears are mushy can't you just squeeze the crap out of them and not get hung up on the press? I did that for several years.

 

[chasemandingo]

True....I could indeed and by the time the s.g. lowers to the point where they need to be squeezed I figure there will be even less material in the nylon bag having been broken down by the yeast/enzymes. In my rush I did add 7 grams of booster blanc to a wine that will end up being 3-4 gallons.....can you foresee any issues with this as it is essentially a double dose.

 

[Turock]

The fermentation, along with the pectinase, will break the fruit down to nothing. When we make pear wine, all we do is cut the pears and bag them. The ferment and pectinase break it all down.

It's nice to have a fruit crusher for pears or apples, but the way you're doing it works too.

71B is a good culture for pear, especially if you're using Bartlett pears as the acid can be kind of harsh.

 

[chasemandingo]

I pitched my 71b starter last night. Had an S.G. of 1.084 at ~70 degrees. This a.m. I opened the primary and moved my bag around squeezing the fruit and mixing batch up pretty well....all good so far. Hey turock! I have a couple questions for you. Have you ever added malo culture to your pear? Does 71b handle concurrent mlf? Should I say forget it let the 71b reduce the malic then adjust p.H. with tartaric post fermentation? Are you named after the legendary dinosaur fighting native American video game character? So many questions!

 

[Runningwolf]

Turock, where have you been? The best Pear Wine I made was from following Turocks tips!!

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I thought Turock Rule #1 was never to add water to anything We are trying to grow some chokepears to add to our pear ciders to give them a little bit more depth, like adding crabapples to a cider. WVMJ

 

[Runningwolf]

I agree with NO water!

 

[Turock]

I'm glad you liked the pear the way we make it!!!!! And I agree--no water!!

Well, it's been a BUSY summer. AND I had a few computer issues that took me off-line for a while. When you have a big piece of property to maintain, and dead ash trees falling everywhere-----well, the summer just disappears on you!!

If you use the 71B, you'll find that it needs no more acid reduction. I've never MLF'd pear, so I can't tell you how the flavor comes out. But I'm sure you're gonna love the pear just like it is with the 71B. We usually adjust the PH on pear to be somewhere around 3.3 to 3.4, if that's a help to you. We always PH adjust the must before fermentation but you can do it later---it's just easier to do it pre-ferment and we feel it incorporates better and you also don't have to fool around with the wine post-ferment. I like getting the wine all adjusted while we're at the primary. I hate adjusting wines later on.

Actually, Turock was an old comic book character---"Turock, Son of Stone." He was my brother's favorite comic book character from the old days. However, I'm a bit younger than him and I don't remember the comic book. I didn't know there was video game character with the same name--and I'm ashamed to say that---especially because I'm a big video game player, myself.

 

[chasemandingo]

Pears removed and squeezed yielded almost 4 gallons.

 

[Runningwolf]

awesome, keep us posted and post pictures.

 

[chasemandingo]

Will post pics tonight. I need to rack my Old Orchard cranberry/pom wine and top up with pure cranberry syrup then rack my pear to secondary. Next up is my Winexpert Sauvignon Blanc

 

[chasemandingo]

Well as I should have expected my 4 gallons of liquid in the primary turned into only 2 gallons of non sludgy wine in secondary. So I sucked up a gallon of sludge to make up the difference.