Pear wine, 1st try

[trbig]

I got a bunch of pears from a buddy that said, "Here! Make us some pear wine!" So I read around a bit (Not a lot of info for pear wine) and came up with a recipe I'm now trying. This recipe fills a 7 gal bucket with about a 1" air space left, so if you have a warm spot you're fermenting in, or using a very aggressive yeast such as a Champagne yeast, you might consider a blow-off tube for the first few days. I plan on fermenting at @ 62 degrees and this slows the ferment down well on other fruit wines I've tried.

I had a couple cases of old pears I'd canned a couple years ago, so I went ahead and added those as well. Canned pears are pretty cheap at the store. The fresh pears I got were rather firm, so I quartered and cored them, then froze them and re-thawed which makes them very soft. Any and all comments or suggestions welcome. I ran all pears, canned and fresh, through a food processor and basically had pear sauce the consistency of apple sauce.

12 pints canned pears in heavy syrup
10 lbs. cored fresh pears
3 gals. water
1 can frozen white grape juice thawed
6 lbs. sugar
4 1/2 tsp Acid blend
1 1/2 tsp Pectin enzyme
1 TBS Yeast nutrient
(My preference) 71B-1122 yeast

Run all pears through food processor or mash until a paste. Put in primary along with grape juice, acid blend, and yeast nutrient. In a minimum 12qt pot, boil 2 gals water, then stir in sugar until desolved. Pour water/sugar mix into primary over pear pulp and mix well. Add remaining gal of water to cool down enough to add pectin enzyme and yeast.

I made one batch with a yeast starter and one with dry yeast. We'll see if it makes any difference. Yup.. that means nearly 14 gals of pear wine started today.. lol. Like most fruit wines, this pear wine is supposed to take a considerable time to age out, so have patience. Most places say to syphon the wine from the primary after 3 weeks into a secondary, trying to leave the pulp behind. After a few more weeks, I will cold crash them for a week or so to clear them, then transfer to another secondary for it's aging process. I'll give some updates along the way. I'm hoping for a semi-sweet wine in the end.

 

[trbig]

Just an update... The batch with the yeast starter is fermenting harder than the batch that was just dry yeast. Seems a no-brainer, but in something like this, I like the ferment rate of the dry yeast.. just a steady slower pace vs an aggressive one. Especially when you're talking about something that won't be ready for maybe a year.

 

[TopgunTango]

Will you be aging it in oak barrels or just in the bottles? Also, what kind of grape juice are you using?

Interesting brew! Can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

[trbig]

I'm just using Welch's white grape juice. I don't have oak barrels, so it'll be aged in either a carboy or bottles.

I'm curious as to how much liquid there'll be vs pulp left behind. The mixes resemble a thin apple sauce, so there's a lot of pulp in there right now.