Prickly Pear Mead

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magno

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I started on the Prickly Pear Mead from Papazians book last night:

20 lbs light honey
5.5 lbs prickly pear fruit
yeast nutrient
champaign yeast (white labs)
pectic enzyme

The fruit was boiled for 2 hours as per Charlie P's instructions. This set the pectin and he recomends using pectic enzyme in the fermenter. Does he mean the secondary or the primary?

Also I thought about this after I was boiling the fruit, but would I have gotten more prickly pear flavor by fermenting the honey at least partially, then adding the fruit juice? Should I add some more to the secondary?

Any ideas muchly appreciated.

- magno
 
I have limited experience with mead- but with wine you always put the pectic enzyme in the primary. I would assume the same for mead.

Prickly pear (the fruit) is a favorite of mine- this sounds like a winner. I wish I wasn't 1500 miles away from the plants.

Lorena
 
My yard Dude :). Actually, I hacked most out of my yard. They grow like stinkin weeds and then the pack rats come which attract the rattlers but thats another topic. I could get 10 lb easy from what's left in my yard and their just now ripening.

Magno - if your own fruit, how did you prepare it before boil?
 
I got the fruit from a local fruiteria. They came in 11 oz packages, already skinned. I chopped them up pretty fine and boiled them.

desertBrew, my grandma used to live in Tucson and she had the same problem as you. She made jam every year and still had a surplus.

Thanks for the advise lorenae, I will add it to the primary.

- magno
 
I've been working from dusk to dawn and still haven't had a chance to see if they're all ripe now, or over-ripe and dropping to the ground. Heading out of town this weekend and then MN most of next week. Timing may be a problem here. There's a field near my house full of them as well. Just stuck a post-it note to my forehead to try and remember to check out the fruit. These buggers are nasty to deal with however. I know you flame off the needles. I'd have to do a little R&D on preparing them. Not sure if I'm up to shipping them out to others... Anyone know the shipping rules on fruit?

needles.jpg


This link talks of different ways to prepare including a puree. Hmmm...

http://www.desertusa.com/magoct97/oct_pear.html
 
Holy crap! How much does one of those fruits weight? Are they mostly edible (except, you know, the pricky bits) or is there a large amount of seed and other waste? That's a LOT of fruits.
 
They're very meaty. Wild guess would be 3-4 oz each. That'd be about 20-25lb needed for this recipe as picked. I'll admit, I've never even had a drink of mead yet so am going to pick up a bottle on the way home tonight. After surfing that GotMead.com web site (better than working), I read it's a 1-2 year process which I could handle but I am concerned with their comments on keeping the ferment at around 60. That isn't going to happen with me for a year! Any mead'ers that can comment on temp? Is this most critical during the primary ferment and afterwards would 75-78 be a problem? If I'd short change the quality because of bad temp control I'd scrap this thought now.

fruit1.jpg


There about the size of a large egg. There are seeds inside but not an outrageous amount. They need to be flamed to be rid of the prickers, I'd assume also skinned. After that I'm confused. Google will help. I'm going to pick one tonight and play.
 
the_bird said:
Holy crap! How much does one of those fruits weight? Are they mostly edible (except, you know, the pricky bits) or is there a large amount of seed and other waste? That's a LOT of fruits.

The 11 oz. packs that I found had 5 to 6 fruits per pack, about 2 oz each.

desertBrew said:
I read it's a 1-2 year process which I could handle but I am concerned with their comments on keeping the ferment at around 60. That isn't going to happen with me for a year! Any mead'ers that can comment on temp? Is this most critical during the primary ferment and afterwards would 75-78 be a problem? If I'd short change the quality because of bad temp control I'd scrap this thought now.

I'll have to check when I get home, but I think I remember the optimal temperature being higher than 60.

In fact here they say the temp should be 70 to 75.

- magno
 
:off: There is a mead recipe floating around here that requires NO aging and is a super fast ferment. Not suitable for your "regular" meads with the prickly pear fruit, but I've made this and it's awesome. It's best to be 75 degrees plus while it's fermenting, so it might be the answer for hot places. It's called Ancient Orange Mead by Joe Mattioli. I can post it later on (got to run now!) if you want, or you can do a search.

Lorena
 
<Bump>

Magno, how did your prickly pear mead come out? I never got a chance to do it in '06 and there wasn't much fruit around here because of lack of winter rains. Hoping we have a good pricker spring this year.
 
The bit that I tasted at bottling was fantastic. It is crystal clear. I will open them in June, and I will definitly post the results here. Stay tuned.
 
Magno......

Did you do your taste test in June?

I just moved into a house that has a large prickly pear cactus in the yard. It flowered last month and now I have a close to 150 fruits sloooooowly ripening. Going to take a shot at a real mead this fall when they are ripe.

Whod'a thunk there'd be prickly pear cactus in the lower Columbia River valley? we get about 6 FEET of rain here per year:ban:
 
I just made a PP Mead last week or so.

I got the fruit from a Mexican grocery store. They were a nice pink color inside, but that got boiled off.

I checked the net for preperation and all I got was to put them in a food processor until they were all chopped up...skin, seeds and all.

I used Papazian's recipe also, but only used 10 lbs of honey.
 
I just started picking my prickly's as well but got interuptedby a lighting show. I got to get out there and get enough to start peeling them soon (darn work!)
 
fretman124 said:
Magno......

Did you do your taste test in June?

I just moved into a house that has a large prickly pear cactus in the yard. It flowered last month and now I have a close to 150 fruits sloooooowly ripening. Going to take a shot at a real mead this fall when they are ripe.

Whod'a thunk there'd be prickly pear cactus in the lower Columbia River valley? we get about 6 FEET of rain here per year:ban:


I did opened them last month. The taste is excellent but the mouthfeel is off. It is very thick. Papazian mentions this in the recipe. I think that he says to boil the fruit for two hours to make it less viscous. If that is the case (I dont have my book around) I would consider a longer boil.

I will probably attempt this recipe again some time.

- magno
 
magno said:
I did opened them last month. The taste is excellent but the mouthfeel is off. It is very thick. Papazian mentions this in the recipe. I think that he says to boil the fruit for two hours to make it less viscous. If that is the case (I dont have my book around) I would consider a longer boil.

I will probably attempt this recipe again some time.

- magno

Great stuff! The slickish thick mouthfeel is normal but will lessen with time, lots of time. It will not ever go completely away even with extra boiling and aging. I haven't had any PP wines or beers in a bunch of years but the ones I have had were great and packed a massive puch for a long time.
 
A guy in my brewclub went to the AHA National finals with a prickly pear mead. I recently had a taste and it was amazing (I don't have much mead experience). It was more like a liquour than a wine because it had quite a bit of residual sweetness.
 
mgayer said:
Great stuff! The slickish thick mouthfeel is normal but will lessen with time, lots of time. It will not ever go completely away even with extra boiling and aging. I haven't had any PP wines or beers in a bunch of years but the ones I have had were great and packed a massive puch for a long time.

Yeah I will age the rest of the bottles. I may open one every 3 to 6 months. Hopefully it mellows out a bit, but if it doesnt ... well I'll drink it anyway.
 
In papazain's book he mentions if it is a bit too sweet consider doing another dry pp mead and mix them. Dry meant 14# of honey. Magno, you did the full 20# right? I'm thinking about maybe doing 16 or 17#.

But, the thickness... does this come from the qty of pears? I picked 10# and now maybe I want to follow the recipe and do 5-6? I was going to scoop out the guts only though and boil that. Did the packages you bought also have the skins in there? I'm wondering if not including those in the boil will be missing something. I wouldn't think so but I dunno...
 
DesertBrew said:
In papazain's book he mentions if it is a bit too sweet consider doing another dry pp mead and mix them. Dry meant 14# of honey. Magno, you did the full 20# right? I'm thinking about maybe doing 16 or 17#.

But, the thickness... does this come from the qty of pears? I picked 10# and now maybe I want to follow the recipe and do 5-6? I was going to scoop out the guts only though and boil that. Did the packages you bought also have the skins in there? I'm wondering if not including those in the boil will be missing something. I wouldn't think so but I dunno...

Yes, I used 20 lbs of honey. I dont think 16 or 17 would be a bad idea.

The thickness does come from the fruit. I used 5.5 lbs of the fruit, diced with no skins, and boiled for two hours. I wouldnt think of adding more.

- magno
 
Yea, I think I'll stick with 5-6 lbs. HB99 or magno; another question if I may. Did the store bought fruit have seeds or were they MIA? Best I can find is I want to peel these things kind of like a kiwi and discard the inner juice/seeds?
 
I think that mine had seeds, but its been a while now since I made it. I got my fruit from a fruiteria not far from where I was living at the time. Im pretty sure that they were sold peeled but with seeds.
 
I'm about to go prickly pear picking with a friend and either make a mead or wine with it. I've been making a bunch of mead's lately so I'll probably continue in that vein. Just recently I made a dewberry mead that'll have you seeing flying monkeys half the bottle through.

We rarely run AC in our house and we live in central texas so it's like 90 degrees in the house every day and my mead's been fermenting just fine. I dunno, maybe if I was an expert wine taster I'd be able to tell the difference ...

hehe.. in the middle of this post my friend just showed up with a bag full of prickly pears he went and picked. Looking at them and cutting a few open they don't look all look ripe. I cut a couple open and two of them where still green on the inside and one of them was red on the inside. Both of them had a bunch of seeds in them already.. is that normal for the green pears?

Right now I've got 8 bottles of strawberry mead (/w cotes des blanc) I've made. 8 bottles of dewberry mead (/w champaign yeast). 6 bottles of just plain 'ol mead (probably my favorite)... I've got 2 gallons of methaglin going (tea and spice mead), 2.5 gallons of another dewberry mead, 2.5 gallons of cyser (mead /w apples).
 
i have a gallon batch of pp mead that i started last month and after racking it last week, fermentation has slowed down to one bubble every 2 or 3 minutes. i dont think it is done fermenting because when i shake it a little, it will bubble a couple times and then stop. has anyone had experience with a mead that seems to stop fermenting after racking?

mrgrackle: i have been picking pps for a couple of years now and i have learned that when the pears are really pretty and bright red, they are not yet ripe. you have to wait untill they turn dark red/maroon and the top of them will flatten and then almost bulge out. i have read though that the ripeness of fruit is not an issue when brewing mead.
 
i'll also say that i did not boil the fruit for 2 hours, more like 30 minutes, as i did not know this was necissary. i did not use a recipe, i thought i was being creative untill i found this thread. does boiling the fruit for so long take away its brilliant color?
 
Yea, I think I'll stick with 5-6 lbs. HB99 or magno; another question if I may. Did the store bought fruit have seeds or were they MIA? Best I can find is I want to peel these things kind of like a kiwi and discard the inner juice/seeds?

18 Aug 08: Mine had seeds. I actually chopped/blended the whole fruit.

I know Charlie P says it has a nice color, but mine is colorless from the fruit and yellowish from the honey.

EDIT: OK, curiosity got the better of me tonight. I opened a bottle of PPM and it drinks like it did last year...glass #3 is tasty, well, technically, so were #1 and 2...I'm buzzed again...

Ya can't get a medic on a subway line...OWWWW...time to plug in the guitar...
 
yeah they have a bunch of small hard seeds.

i hope the prickly pear mead retains its color, if not i may add a little more juice close to the end of fermentation to give it some more color. (if you have not seen the inside of a prickly pear, it has an awesome deep brilliant red color)
 
i pick em myself when they are ready but i have heard that you can use the paper bag trick on prickly pears.

EDIT: i've seen pictures on the net of yellow prickly pears, all of ours in phoenix are red so i have no experience with the yellow ones. maybe yours are a diferent strain and therefore not red?

does anyone know if freezing the juice affects the mouth feel of the finished product?
 
yeah they have a bunch of small hard seeds.

i hope the prickly pear mead retains its color, if not i may add a little more juice close to the end of fermentation to give it some more color. (if you have not seen the inside of a prickly pear, it has an awesome deep brilliant red color)

Alas the color will be lost and will be more of a golden color. As for the fermenting. bubbling is barely noticeable. Mine stayed in the 1st fermenter for 42 days. Second fermenter for 30. I should have racked it a third time for another 30. I had slight sediment in the bottles that make for a careful pour. I bottled it once the FG was at 1.002.

The boiling for 2 hours has something to do with the pectin (I'm no wine guy) but I'll take Charlies word for it. Actually it was a recipe from some dude in Tucson 20+ some years ago.
 
Any tricks to getting the inside red like a paper bag does for tomatoes???

Maybe they're picked early for unknowing gringos??? I sure would like this if it were red...

I think its a different strain too Bill. The red one's around here start green and go pink to red/maroon. No yellow during the ripening process...
 
i hope the prickly pear mead retains its color, if not i may add a little more juice close to the end of fermentation to give it some more color.

As DesertBrew said, the brilliant color of the prickly pears is lost. Mine lost it's color when the fruit was boiled, not during fermentation, so adding juice after ferment wouldn't help. I believe the fruit is boiled because it's kind of slimy, so I don't think I'd eliminate the boil.
 
i boiled my pps down yesterday, it turned from that amazing color to a dull maroon. i filtered it twice, mixed in some pectic enzyme, let it sit overnight and then froze it. i have over a gallon of juice and i want to try another pp mead. how much of this juice should i use for a gallon batch?
 
i boiled my pps down yesterday, it turned from that amazing color to a dull maroon. i filtered it twice, mixed in some pectic enzyme, let it sit overnight and then froze it. i have over a gallon of juice and i want to try another pp mead. how much of this juice should i use for a gallon batch?

I've only made this once (plan to do another batch soon). Anyways, here's a couple other links to review.

Recipe similar to the Papizian one if you don't already have the book or a specific recipe.
http://www.weaselbreweries.com/recipes/cactus.html

My Prickly Pear Mead thread if there is any other info you can nab from this thread.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=34696&highlight=prickly+pear

As for how much juice, mine started out with 10# whole fruit, cleaned up ended at 5# so however much that is...
 
Howdy,

I've been wanting to make this mead for sometime but live in the Northeast. I recently looked it up and I found that it's generally found in Arizona and areas around there but I also read that it's the only cactus that's native to *this* area as well. I also recently found some prickly pears at a local Shaw market. I picked some up to experiment with a prickly pear mead and see how it comes out. It'll be one of five meads I make in a two week period. The pears I found in the store look pretty good, mostly ripe, not bruised. They also came without the darn prickers, which is awfully convenient.

If it helps I'll let you know what I did and how it develops.

Selene
 
My prickly pear mead is about to get another 5 pounds of prickly pear fruit in it.

I used 12lbs honey with 6lbs prickly pear for the first fermentation.
 
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