prickly pear wine

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vegas20s

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I live in Las Vegas and people have landscaped every where with prickly pear cacti. I found some recipes for prickly pear wine, but was wondering how it tastes. Has any one ever had/drank/made prickly pear wine?
 
Hmmm! no replies yet? Thing is if I make this I'll tie up a 6.5 gallon carboy for like a year so it better be really good other wise what's the point.
 
Well... I'm making a prickly pear mead right now and I would say it tastes like a sweet cactus. It is a OK taste IMHO but I'm not sure if you would want to tie up your large carboy. Maybe you should pick one and taste it first?

Best of luck.
 
IMHO prickly pear tastes awesome! Fresh and Sweet. Prickly pear mead huh? What does the recipe look like?
 
I decided to do a 2 gallon batch (got a new 2 gallon brew bucket). I cleaning and boiled 5 lbs of pears and added 3.75 lbs of wildflower honey. The SG is 1.070 approx. 10% ABV. I pitched a pack of Montrachet wine yeast and nutrient/energizer. Fermentation has stopped after a week. I'm gonna add 2 cups of sugar soon and once it finishes up I'll be adding another 5lbs of pears when I rack it to the secondaries.

I keep you posted.
 
I'm currently making my third batch of Prickly Pear mead. The pulp from the pears can take a while to break down and for the mead to clarify, but it will clarify eventually. I highly recommend adding some pectic enzyme at the start of fermentation.

My first batch was made with Prickly pear preserves and was spectacular. My second batch I used actual Prickly Pears, but boiled the pulp too long. I went by the time listed on the recipe and not my gut. This resulted in a loss of all the spectacular color of the pear and the bulk of the fruity prickly pear flavor. The point of the boiling was to break down some of the gelatinous goo that makes up a prickly pear.

In the most recent batch I skinned and then juiced the prickly pears instead of mashing them with a potato masher. The juice went straight into the carboy with the honey, while the pulp got boiled long enough to sanitize it. As a result I have a LOT of prickly pear flavor and the color is a spectacular dark red. My two year old son confuses it with the beet wine I have in another carboy.

This is spectacular stuff and even the batch that lost most it's color was so good my wife was OK with me making another 3 gallon batch for submitting to competitions.

As a final note, mesquite honey is a natural pairing for prickly pears in making mead. It also helps that mesquite honey is about $2.90 a pound at Trader Joe's when in season. :D
 
I bottle my batch a little while ago and I must say it is quite good! Of course it needs to age to smooth out but it did turn out quite sweet with a very pleasent taste. The cactus flavor I mentioned earlier has pretty much disappeared.
 
I know this is an old thread how is the wine going?

Also how many times did you have to rack?
 
I just bottled the most recent batch. It could have done with another racking so I only ended up bottling two of the three gallons. I gave my wife a taste and she replied with "Hell yes, that's a competition mead."

It came out with a hint of sweetness but not too dry. This batch is drier than the previous batch which I think makes it more drinkable. I started a cyser at the same time as the prickly pear mead with the same base honey and nutrient additions. The cyser is still a bit too sharp so when I racked it I topped it off with some of the cloudy last gallon of prickly pear mead.
 
I just bottled the most recent batch. It could have done with another racking so I only ended up bottling two of the three gallons. I gave my wife a taste and she replied with "Hell yes, that's a competition mead."

It came out with a hint of sweetness but not too dry. This batch is drier than the previous batch which I think makes it more drinkable. I started a cyser at the same time as the prickly pear mead with the same base honey and nutrient additions. The cyser is still a bit too sharp so when I racked it I topped it off with some of the cloudy last gallon of prickly pear mead.

thanks for the update.

question did you buy or pick your pears?
 
I bought them. I live In New England and doubt there's anyone growing them locally unless it's in a greenhouse. A few stores carry them in the Fall.

I generally blanch them in gently boiling water for thirty seconds and then peel them while holding them in a dishtowel. The staining from the pulp is murder on the dishtowel but saves my hands a lot of grief from the prickles. I then put the slices through the juicer and decant the juice into the fermenter. The pulp gets boiled until it starts to break up. If the pulp starts to lose color stop and use it as is.

I add some pectic enzyme to the must to help break down the pulp more completely. This is the process that has gotten me the best traits so far.
 
Update on prickly pear availability. It turns out the plants can grow outdoors in most of New England. All they need is a sunny spot with plenty if drainage. Protecting them with a later of hay probably wouldn't hurt. They apparently shed a lot of water to survive the Winter. I first learned of this when I saw them growing outdoors at the Stone Zoo in Massachusetts.

The last time I juiced a prickly pear I took some of the seeds and put them in some moist soil indoors. I now have close to a dozen seedlings with two leaves and a prickly nub between them. I suspect this would be one garden plant the local squirrels won't mess with.
 
The first batch of wine I made was prickly pear and mulberry. We had too much fruit and too much jelly, so we said, 'lets make some wine'! It was awesome!!! It was also the most beautiful magenta color I have ever seen. Turned me into a winemaker. I just used the 'old' standard family recipe of absolutley NO MORE than 5 cups of sugar per gallon. The cactus figs are starting to ripen, here in southern Mississippi, so I have been collecting them and putting them in the freezer. I burn those nasty little spines off over an open flame and blanch them. I then put them in my juicer, but the seeds did some damage, though, so this year I am going to try scooping them out like you do with and avocado or pomegranate. I can't wait until they are all ripe. It was my favorite wine, second only to pineapple and blueberry/pomegranate. I say go for it, it might not be competition wine, but it should be yummy!!!
 
Hi all!

I find myself right bang in the middle of prickly pear season in the greek island of amorgos. The cactuses are loaded with ripe fruit, nobody is picking them up and there is only so much we can eat. So i decided to give it a go with winemaking, only i have limited access to resources (i might be able to find here yeast and nutrients, but it is tricky). Also, I'm only slightly acquainted with winemaking, in the traditional greek village way were no yeast or nutrients are used.

Has anyone tried it out successfully without yeast and nutrients? I read sth about using honey - that i can come by easily.

Thanx for the attention!
 
For Nikos:
I don't use nutrients, except a handful of raisins, every now and then, but I do use yeast. Can you buy it off the internet? There is a fellow on here called oldwinemaker, who makes wine without yeast. I saw him on the third page of the thread "Plum wine, complete newbie, save me from myself". Or something close to that. You should ask him, he seems well informed. I must say, I am quite jealous of all your 'cactus figs'. I have about two gallons so far, and I want more. It was the BEST wine I have ever tasted/made, and I have about two more pickings before my plants are spent. Good luck and let us know how it is going.
 
This is the post from oldwinemaker in Plum Wine, Complete newb! Save me from myself!
DoubleRainbow,
I've been making wine for 20 years and I never use yeast. All I use is sugar and water. NO CHEMICALS OR YEAST. I have made wine from Peaches, Raspberries, Blackberries, Plums and so on. For all the details on how I make it, send me a message or email and I'll tell you the exactly how I do it. The way I do it is too lengthly to put it here. Hope this helps!!!
 
This is the post from oldwinemaker in Plum Wine, Complete newb! Save me from myself!
DoubleRainbow,
I've been making wine for 20 years and I never use yeast. All I use is sugar and water. NO CHEMICALS OR YEAST. I have made wine from Peaches, Raspberries, Blackberries, Plums and so on. For all the details on how I make it, send me a message or email and I'll tell you the exactly how I do it. The way I do it is too lengthly to put it here. Hope this helps!!!
 
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