best way to extract juice from prickly pears

Well I have read several ways from steam juicer to peeling or not to peel boil vs no boil ext........ I have eight and a half gallons of some really nice tunas and want to do a five gallon batch. Any input would be helpful. Checked J Kellers site and he says 6 lbs a gallon so I have an extra 15 lbs or so.Should I use them all? I don't see me peeling that many so I have to choose something else. Thanks Mike

If it were me, I'd use all but the 15 extra pounds and make another smaller batch out of that. Freeze concentrate the small batch and use it to backsweeten.

Would you ferment on the pulp or extract the juice?

The pulp gets to be really slimy and viscous, like an algae almost, but with seeds. I've only used it as an adjunct, never strait. You should probably juice. Or mash them up, pour some hot water in, and pour off the juice through a strainer. You have a lot. That way you won't have the seeds throwing tannins. It's pretty easy to cut them lengthwise and peel the skin off. Did you torch off the mini spines? They really are a painful nuisance.

Okay 30 lbs should make five gallon according to the J Keller site. So I took the three biggest pans Deb has and put about three inch of water in each one Brought water to boil and filled pans with frozen pears or tunas as they are called.left heat on low and mashed with a tater masher skins spines and all. They smash rather easy and not a lot of juice left in the pulp. Strained in to a bucket. Then I ran the juice thru a fine mesh sack and put it in a seven gallon bucket. Added 5 c tabs 8lbs sugar and 1 gallon of 100 percent Blueberry Pomegrante juice and 1/2cup of lemon juice. SG is 1085 Pitched 1118 and added some energizer and pectic enzyme this morning. Mike

Sounds like awesomeness

Smells out of this word..... even better than blackberry smells while fermenting. Mike

I love the color of the juice. Purplish with pink highlighter edges. Tastes like pear with a hint of blackberry.

I have a feeling that this could be a very spine wine. Mike

Only down to 1040 but racked and ran thru a flour sack into secondary. Ended up a half gallon short so I mashed about twenty more tuna with about a cup and a half of water. Got a full five gallon carboy. Never had a wine even close to this color. I will see about a pic when I get the chance. If I lose some on the next couple racks water top ups shouldn't hurt

Just started a batch of prickly pear wine. I have used JK's recipes before and they can be a little weak. I am making 1 gallon of wine from about 25 pounds of tunas. To get the juice: I burned off the thorns over an open fire using a grilling cage, rinsed for at least 10 minutes, then cut off the ends, put in a crusher to extract the juice. For the wine I added a few raisons and Cabernet skins that I saved from my Cabernet wine. Still fermenting and will let you know how it turned out.

25 lbs for one gallon? I got almost three gallon of straight juice from 30 lbs.

I think I was late in the season. Hoping to start earlier next year. So 3 gal per 30 lbs is about 80% juice - that's pretty amazing!