truckjohn

Recipes 

So... It's 2012 and an update....
The Perry finally cleared - more or less... Haven't tasted it or fooled with it in a while... I will probably rack it off and sulphite it again... then let it sit some more....

The "Cloudy and sour" part dissipated quite nicely as it settled and cleared.... Seems like stirring it helped out with that... Probably just needed de-gassing and to get that yeast back out of suspension.

Makes me think that I really ought to give it a taste to see how it's doing!

Thanks

truckjohn

Recipes 

SG is rock solid at 1.02. Flavor is intense, tart pear with a beer nose and a nice, light sweetness... Just enough sweetness that the tartness isn't unpleasant... I don't particularly like the Beer nose... Unfortunately, it's probably an artifact of using Beer yeast...

Even though the SG is 1.02 - It is not as sweet as my Joe's Ancient Orange Mead at 1.01... I suppose that's the Pear's natural Sorbitol...

It's still kinda cloudy - if all goes well, I will try to rack it off this week....

I have said it several times now - don't ever use Beer yeast with Perry ever again! Next time will be some sort of cooperative Wine yeast like 71B...

Thanks

liquidavalon

Recipes 

Interesting. I would have thought that pears would be a higher fermentable fruit due to apples have high acidity that sometimes slows the process down. Not sure...looking forward to more info on the happenings.

truckjohn

Recipes 

Apples in my experience run 100% dry - like below SG 1.00...

These pears were far more tart than "Normal" eating/juice apples that I have fooled with.... I think they would probably be the pear equivalent of "Bitter sharp" Cider apples...

But.. Even sweet, buttery eating pears seem to finish up somewhere above 1.00 if you start with actual Pear Juice - not the store bought "nectar" stuff... which is pear puree, sugar, and lemon juice....

Thanks

phaem

Recipes 

You seem to be leaning toward wine yeast, John, in part because it may form a more firm cake and in part because the ale yeasts yield a 'beer' character. I have been under the impression that the ale yeasts flocculate more easily and settle out better in a cold crash situation, but I have no personal experience to support that impression. Where a person is looking to stop fermentation with significant residual sugar (SG ~ 1.02) with cold and then filter-sterilize, do you think that a wine yeast may be suitable and potentially yield a better cider?

I haven't noticed a 'beer' character to my ciders (outside of a batch of graf that doesn't wow me in a good way), but perhaps in comparison to a wine yeast product such a 'defect' might be more obvious?

truckjohn

Recipes 

I have had real good luck with Ale yeasts in apple Cider... I will continue to use them for that. I haven't really had any trouble with my apple ciders clearing properly with Ale yeast, or weird, off flavors in them either - which is why I started out with an ale yeast in my Perry batch.... They have also cold crashed reliably.... although I pasteurize my sweet hard cider rather than filter sterilizing... I have no doubt that filter sterilization would work just fine after cold crashing and carefully racking off the lees, though....

Perhaps Pear is just different from Apple.. It probably needs to be treated more like a fruit wine than like Cider.. Thinking about it - I wouldn't use Ale yeast in Raspberry or Plum wine..... This stuff started with the raw juice with an SG=1.094 and a whole lot of acid. Pear is also notorious for clearing extremely slowly... and it is living up to that reputation...

I didn't get anything off the pear tree last year... so there won't be a 2011 batch. Apparently, it doesn't bear every year.... Maybe 2012 will bring a good harvest of pears....

Thanks

phaem

Recipes 

Interesting. Thank you John