Can I make beer from a Prickly Pear Cactus?

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Isn't that like trying to use a whole apple tree to make strudel? Isn't it usually the fruit itself that contains the natural sugars, or the potential for natural sugars? When we make beer, we only use the heads of the plant, the grain itself, not the stalks......Is there much sugar in the cactus itself?
 
Off topic.. but, while I was have ing outpatient surgery today, I was looking at the posters in the lobby. Most, if not all, posters were about different root veggies and interesting things about them. One of the roods was Parsnip... I forget the other.. but in Ireland.. likely many years ago.. it was used to make beer. So, I guess you can make beer out of a ton of things including cactus. I was at a brewery in Phoenix last week.. they make a beer from prickly pear cactus. I don't remember what the brewer said.. but, I think it went into the primary.. crushed.
 
Evidently even Shiner makes a prickly pear beer.....but according to their website it's the fruit.

Just about anything organic can somehow be used in making alcohol, it's just that some of it is easier than others. Obviously anything that contains natural sugars, i.e the fruit of a plant can be used, that's obvious. Next comes something that might be higher in starch than sugar, but you can convert it, either by cereal mashing it, OR by roasting it. Corn can be fermented by mashing it. I'm drinking a sweet potato mead that was made with equal parts honey and sweet potatoes that I roasted, roasting concentrated the sugars in them.

THEN there are the things that may have some trace starch or sugar, but mostly can be used to flavor other fermentables.......I just posted yesterday about pea pod wine. I don't think they have a lot of natural sugar, but by boiling them with sugar, and adding raisins during fermentation it evidently manages to make a wine.

People have used all manner of stuff, even carrots to make hooch with.
 
I was gonna say, Shiner did it, but they use the tunas. You want to use the nopales?

I suppose you can. I've eat them. They're okay, but kinda green tasting. Kinda planty, but in a unique way. They don't 'taste like' anything. They taste like nopales.

They get kinda slimy too, like okra. I wonder how that would ferment out, or not, and how it'd effect head.
 
I have actually had tuna pulque in Mexico (beer made with agave nectar). I have actually thought about buying the nectar and fermenting with a belgium yeast strain and adding tuna or mango juice to the secondary.
 
I was gonna say, Shiner did it, but they use the tunas. You want to use the nopales?

I suppose you can. I've eat them. They're okay, but kinda green tasting. Kinda planty, but in a unique way. They don't 'taste like' anything. They taste like nopales.

They get kinda slimy too, like okra. I wonder how that would ferment out, or not, and how it'd effect head.

Maybe the Nopales could be treated like pea pods as done in this video, boiled with sugar to basically flavor other fermentables, and maybe drain some sugars from the pulp.



This is the most BORING video I have ever seen, though.

I have actually had tuna pulque in Mexico (beer made with agave nectar). I have actually thought about buying the nectar and fermenting with a belgium yeast strain and adding tuna or mango juice to the secondary.

Where exactly is the nectar drawn from? Isn't it from the fruit, or is it like maple sap, drawn from the cactus itself?
 
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I can't help with the prickly pear pads, I've only made a melomel with the fruits. In regards to HbgBill's comment about the Parsnips. I picked up a box of old brewing books, and one of them "Successful Wine Making at Home" by H.E. Bravery has a section on Root Wines and includes two recipes for Parsnip wines, as well as a few other roots. The book was first printed in 1961, possibly in Europe, so the methods, uncommon US herbs, and chapter on wine for ladies (low alcohol) are great.
 
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