Pears

[ffemt128]

I racked and kmeta'd the Pear again today. Crystal clear with good flavor. Pear taste is very mild. Tastes good dry but will benefit from a little back sweetening. I'm thinking 1.000, it's currently at .992

 

[ffemt128]

I pulled off a sample last night and back sweetened slightly. Pear taste is very subtle, good mouthfeel and body for a light fruit wine. I think I'm going to simmer down a quart of pear nectar and add as an fpac. Both my wife and I think it could benefit from a touch more pear flavor. After that I'll have to let clear again. This will likely be in the carboy for several more months before bottling.

 

[Turock]

I didn't go back to the first part of this thread--so how old is this pear? Did you use water in the fruit? We always make pear wine with no water and the flavor is very good. But it takes quite some time for pear to firm up its flavor. Can take up to two years.

That's not saying you can't use the pear nectar. But if this wine is young, you might want to be more patient and wait until it's at least one year old before evaluating flavor.

 

[ffemt128]

It was all juice with no water. Currently it is about 7 months old. The pears were not very flavorful to begin with but we decided to give it a shot since they were free. I have the nectar simmering now for the past 2 hours. Going to go for half original quantity then pour in.

 

[Julie]

I had a bushel of pears given to me and I started a wine with no water added, left it age for about 16 months before I bottled. When I bottled was when I started to realize this just might be a good wine. Up until then there really was no pear flavor. I haven't tasted it since I bottled it and don't plan to until October this year, that will be the two year mark.

 

[Turock]

ffemt----Bartlett is one of the best pears for flavorful wine. I know what you mean about some pears that aren't as flavorful. We've run into that too. There's not a thing wrong with what you're doing and it will work well, but after you add the nectar I think you should allow it to age for a time. 7 months is VERY young for a pear.

Julie---In our experience with pear wine, we found it's real primo at the 2 year mark. Have you ever found your pear made with no water as a tad harsh? The 2 years of aging makes it nice and mellow but we found that using a malic metabolizing culture like 71B does a real nice job on that harshness. Anymore, we only like using the Bartlett for our wines.

 

[Julie]

Thanks Turock, I did hear that it takes two years for to come into it's own and I am glad you confirmed that for me. And yes I did use 71B, there was a harshness to it and I noticed that after 16 months some of the harshness had left and more of the pear was coming thru, it was because of this and someone telling me that it takes two years that I decided to bottled and just put it in a corner in the basement and forget about it until this fall.

 

[ffemt128]

Yes Turock. Im inteniding on leaving this in the carboy for at least another 5 months, most likely longer since I have the empties. I also used 71b yeast. Based on initial tastes im hopeful to be able to ger more pears this year. Hey, they were free.

 

[Turock]

Julie---I agree with you that no matter how you make pear, it takes a LONG time to age. That's why we always try to make 5-10 gallons every year so that we always have some that is ready to bottle.

Another interesting thing to do with pear is make some cinnamon extract to make cinnamon pear--it's really good.

 

[Julie]

Julie---........Another interesting thing to do with pear is make some cinnamon extract to make cinnamon pear--it's really good.

LOL, I did think of that! I actually googled a pear chess pie to try and mimic that, it calls for cinnamon and ginger.

 

[Turock]

Just get yourself a bottle of vodka and about 8 cinnamon sticks--extract works so well because you can adjust the flavor of the wine so readily. If you want to add ginger along with it, I'd be real easy on the ginger--pretty strong flavor. If you try it, let me know how it turns out--I really like making extracts for flavoring wines--gives you SO many optional flavors in your wine rack.

 

[dralarms]

Please excplain the making extract.

 

[Turock]

You can make all kinds of extracts. The idea here is that to extract the oils and flavors, you need a higher alcohol content than what your wine is. Cinnamon, especially, does not get intense enough to stand up in the bottle if you just put cinnamon sticks in the secondary. So you get a bottle of vodka, and put about 8-10 sticks in it. In about a month, you'll have an extract to backflavor your wine.

You can do the same thing with vanilla beans--about 8 vanilla beans to a fifth of vodka. Vanilla is really good on concord--and probably on many other red wines. For both of these extracts, use 1/2 oz. per gallon of finished wine.

 

[ffemt128]

I racked this off the heavy lees caused by the nectar that was added as an fpac. I now have 4 1/2 gallons of pear wine from 67 lbs of pears. The nectar took this to a near perfect sweetness and the pear flavor is now more noticable. I'm very happy with this for my first try at pear. I'll check the acid sometime this month and determine if any adjustments need made. As of now, it's pretty darn good.

 

[Turock]

Boy, that sounds good. Let it age and clear up for you. We usually give out pear 1 year of aging in the carboy.

 

[ffemt128]

Boy, that sounds good. Let it age and clear up for you. We usually give out pear 1 year of aging in the carboy.

I'm intending on letting this age until October. That will be just about a year before it sees bottles.

 

[TommBomb]

Hey guys, everyone seems to be using a fruit press. I was going to use a steam juicer.. Any reasons anyone can think of not to use this method?

 

[jamesngalveston]

your wine sounds like it would be excellent..
I love spiced peachs, and spice pears...that will be my next batch.
Turock, thanks for the info on the extraction with vodka...Will try that with spices for spiced peaches.

 

[ffemt128]

I racked the pear wine yesterday and added kmeta. It's been since June since it was last racked. If has a very subtle pear taste, could benefit from a tad more sugar. I'll experiment with that later at next racking. Has a nice light golden color.

Hopefully if I get pears again this year they have more flavor. These ones were still very much hard but were falling from the trees.

 

[Arne]

Mine came out with a decent pear flavor. Not real strong but you can tell it is pear. As with yours, a nice light color, will take very little sugar to backsweeten. Afraid the pears are not going to be here for me this year, maybe next year.