Prickly Pear Wine

[JohnT]

John, sorry, you are right it is hard to convey tone here.
I will admit to a little bit of irrational catback when I read your post and I apologize.

Arne and James, thanks. I'm still debating pure juice vs fruit must.
I'm torn as to what is best.
I think I'm getting ready to call it on my first batch....it's a fail.
I want this one to be perfect.

Jeri,

No problems! glad we cleared the air! Good luck with your pear wine. Still waiting on some pictures!

 

[Jericurl]

Haven't officially started yet.

I placed an order for some larger buckets and carboys on Monday. Still waiting on them to ship it out. Not sure if more than a one day turn around is normal or if I'm just impatient.
This juice is just slated to be jelly, which I'll be starting in about an hour. No pictures yet really, though I could have taken a picture the other night when I had bright purple juice all over my kitchen. I'll wait until I get officially started then post some stuff. I did post pics of the fruit over in the other prickly pear thread under country wines section. Then I started to think about it and I don't want to spam up that thread with a bunch of newbie questions/mistakes, etc.

I did want to ask you guys....I was thinking out loud to Manthing and talking about water/pulp must vs all 100% juice. He asked if I could make the must using 100% juice, no water, AND several pounds of pulp.
Is there any reason why I wouldn't want to do it that way?

(I mean, it's not like I can't drive out and get hundreds of pounds of cactus fruit.)

 

[JohnT]

Jericurl,

You need to test your juice. If it is too acidic (or sweet) then I think your best bet is to add water to bring these measurements down to where they should be. If the acid and sugar levels are low or at the correct levels, then yes, I believe that you have no need for water.

Why do you want to leave the pulp in? Is it to extract more color? If so, then go ahead and leave the pulp in during primary fermentation. Leave it behind when you transfer to your secondary fermenter.

 

[sgx2]

My grocery store had trays of 18 fruits (7 lbs worth) for $5.99, so I picked up three trays with the plan to start a 3 gal batch.

I ran out of time, so I thought that instead of peeling and boiling the fruit I would wash them, cut them open and sprinkle some pectic enzyme on the exposed fruit (3 tsp total, distributed across all the fruits). I just did that, bagging them and placing them in a primary to sit overnight and get all juicy. I'm going to squish them tomorrow, test the resultant juice for SG, estimate the volume of juice created overnight and calculate the amount of sugar and water needed to get a 3 gal volume out of it. Wish me luck .. .. ..

 

[Jericurl]

I juiced about 1/2 of my prickly pears last week.
It was labor intensive, sweaty, grumpy work.
I made most of that into prickly pear jelly (which turned out awesome by the way.) I also made a bottle of cabernet sauvignon wine (added about a cup of prickly pear juice) into the best jelly I have ever tasted. Manthing and I make bbq sauce with his parents every 6 months or so and last weekend was our get together. I brought the jelly over and his mother and father raved over it. They ended up coming over the next day after church to get more of it for her wine drinking buddies.

This week I got in my steam juicer.
Oh.my.heck.

Where has this thing been all my life?! I'm in love!
I processed about 15 lbs of prickly pear in a very short amount of time. My yield was about 1.5 gallons.
We have an outing planned this weekend to visit some old cemeteries the next county over and I will be bringing every 5 gal bucket I can get my hands on. No reason I can't make it a dual purpose trip!

There is also a pick your own pear orchard that I visit every fall and their harvest time should be any day now. I'll be juicing everything I can get my hands on.

Anyway, the point of this post....I got a fairly cheap steam juicer and I've only done one session with about 15 lbs of fruit. It was definitely worth the money spent.
I got my order in from Midwest on Tuesday and plan on having a 6 gallon batch of prickly pear wine in my fermenter by this next Monday. I can't wait!

 

[jamesngalveston]

apples will start to come in pretty soon in your area...i would make a few trips to the orchards.....apple wine , ummmmmmmmmmm

 

[Jericurl]

Oh, I also stuffed a quart sized mason jar full of halved prickly pear fruit, then topped it off with vodka.
Figure I can either use it as a base or toss it into the wine if need be.


James, I've gotta figure out where the apple orchards are around here.
When I lived in Colorado, cherry and apple trees were all over the place. If I can find a decent amount within 2 or 3 hours, I'm willing to drive.
Apples are so insanely versatile that it would be worth the drive several times over. Jelly, butter, beer, wine, pie, pectin, etc....I'm honestly surprised apples were never used as currency (that I'm aware of).

also eta:
I'm letting some of the juice come to room temp so I can test it for s.g. The juice tastes pretty sweet to me, but I wonder how my taste buds compare to the actual s.g..

 

[Jericurl]

Ok, I'm looking for confirmation that I am reading this correctly.

I have not added anything, this is just straight juice, measured in a 10 inch hydrometer test jar with a hydrometer that came with the kit I ordered.
S.G. before sugar added is 1.030?

And if I added no sugar at all, if it was actually able to come process out it would be between 5 and 10 % alcohol content?

(I've read the hydrometer thread, I just want to make sure I am reading this correctly)

 

[jamesngalveston]

if it ferments to .990 it would be about 5.2 percent..
here is a link that will help you figure that out, very easily.
http://www.davesdreaded.com/homebrew-calculator/

 

[Jericurl]

Thank you.

That'll help me determine the sugar addition because 5.2%...pfffft...why bother?

 

[jamesngalveston]

lol,, I agree...add sugar to get down to 1.110

 

[Jericurl]

I've got about a gallon and a half. Right now.

I'll be collecting about 50 lbs worth this weekend (hopefully).
I plan on adding some white grape concentrate for body (about 3 cans), and enough juice to equal 6 gallons.

I'm wondering if the 2 weeks of extra ripening time will equal out in a measurable increase of sugar content.
Anecdotal of course, since I didn't measure or record any specifics, but will still be interesting nonetheless.

 

[Jericurl]

Question for you guys.

If I don't have enough room in my refrigerator and freezer, can I leave several gallons of juice out overnight? I will be steam juicing the rest of my fruit tomorrow and starting the wine tomorrow night. I will be adding campden tablets, will that kill most manner of bugs that could set up overnight?

 

[Arne]

I am a little late, but if it was me, I would of put all the juice in my primary and started it off. Then added the rest today after I got the fruit made into juice. Arne.

 

[sgx2]

I second Arne's motion.

Alternatively, if you sulphite it sufficiently you'll probably be okay to wait until you have all your juice done. The upside of this approach is that you can chaptalize it and/or adjust acid/pH levels as a whole ... but if you've already adjusted the SG and acid/pH levels of your existing haul of juice and you're prepared to do the same to your new juice, I'd follow's Arne's suggestion.

 

[Jericurl]

Ok, just waiting on the 24 hr countdown after adding campden tablets. Then I will add yeast.


I pretty much completly used Snowgirls recipe, with a slight mistake adjustment:

6 campden tablets
2 cans welchs red grape juice, 2 cans water
4 cans white grape juice, 1 can water
4 tsp pectic enzyme
6 tsp yeast energizer
10 tsp acid
prickly pear juice, just a wee bit over 6 gallons
9 1bs sugar

S.G @ 1.10

 

[saramc]

If you steam juice and have clean, hot canning jars available...voila, canned juice. Since your freezer/fridge are full.
You can even bottle in beer/wine/pop bottles and use these caps, http://www.juicer-steamer.com/bottle-caps.html

 

[Jericurl]

Ahhhh well.....live and learn.

I'll know for next time, thanks for letting me know.

 

[Jericurl]

OMG YOU GUYS!!! It's bubbling, it's foamy! Running around squealing

Ahem. I mean, it looks like primary fermentation has started.

When you guys start checking SG, do you just plop the hydrometer right in the bucket or do you take some out and use another container?

 

[WI_Wino]

I sanitize the hydrometer and plop it in the bucket. But I usually don't check until after several days. If you have a vigorous ferment the co2 will throw off your reading.