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Hey everyone, new member here. I have recently been interested in brewing my own beer, but have been busy tending to my garden. After spending several hours today picking pears and barely making a dent, I had a brainstorm. Since I have so many apples and pears in my back yard, why not brew cider instead of beer? Any advice and/or simple recipes you guys can give me would be appreciated as I am completely in the dark in how to start. FYI - I have Asian pears and Gala and Macintosh apples. Had a lot of Red Bartletts a month ago but they're all gone now. Thanks for any help you guys can give and I'm excited to get started!
 
The most basic recipe / process is very simple. Clean your apples/pears, put them through a grinder, then press them. After that, put the fresh squeezed juice into a carboy with yeast, and let sit for about a year, racking every month or two.

Using apples = cider, using pears = perry, using a mix of two would be... um... apple & pear wine? :cross:

The choices for yeasts are quite long, but depending on what exactly you want for a finished product, you can make a decision. Are you looking for a dryer wine like product, or a younger, dirty, carbonated product?

There are also a number of additives that can be used...
 
I'm looking to make a carbonated beverage with just pears. It will take a year to make???? I thought the turnover was quicker than that. Hmmm, and as for pressing the pears, what do I use? Couldn't I just use the juice, I have one of those Juiceman juicers that I could put it all through. Just a thought, I know I'm a naive rookie but these are the questions I gotta ask. The more info the better I say. From what I heard, wine yeast works well for Cider or Perry. Is this true, if so, which ones?
 
I'm still a rookie myself, but I'll try to help with what knowledge I have... and remember, everyone was a noob at one time... ;)

Some people have talked about using juicers for cider, but I do not know if the yield is the same as grinding & pressing, someone who uses a juicer would have to answer that question. I do know that a bushel (45 pounds) of apples will yield approx. 3 gallons when pressed. I'd assume that pears are the same (or pretty close).

Yeast is purely a personal choice. A number of people do use wine yeast (Montrachet seems a popular favorite), but there are also cider yeasts, and some people are even using beer yeast. Check out https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=36009 to see what I mean. My advice on this subject would be to use what seems to fit your recipe, then experiment on later batches.

Carbing is easy, that's just a matter of adding priming suger when you go to bottle. As far as fermentation time, that's all up to the yeast you use, the recipe you use, and personal preference. I guess you could always just taste test the perry after a month or two, and stop the fermentation if you want.
 
Thanks! I appreciate your advice, although I am running out of time. The pears are sitting in my basement waiting for me to use them and I have been so busy as of late. I'm afraid they may all go to waste, hopefully they will last until next week when I have more time to start working on the Perry. I'll let you know what happens.....

Adolphus79 said:
I'm still a rookie myself, but I'll try to help with what knowledge I have... and remember, everyone was a noob at one time... ;)

Some people have talked about using juicers for cider, but I do not know if the yield is the same as grinding & pressing, someone who uses a juicer would have to answer that question. I do know that a bushel (45 pounds) of apples will yield approx. 3 gallons when pressed. I'd assume that pears are the same (or pretty close).

Yeast is purely a personal choice. A number of people do use wine yeast (Montrachet seems a popular favorite), but there are also cider yeasts, and some people are even using beer yeast. Check out https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=36009 to see what I mean. My advice on this subject would be to use what seems to fit your recipe, then experiment on later batches.

Carbing is easy, that's just a matter of adding priming suger when you go to bottle. As far as fermentation time, that's all up to the yeast you use, the recipe you use, and personal preference. I guess you could always just taste test the perry after a month or two, and stop the fermentation if you want.
Click to expand...
 
In order to use you juicer, you should know the extraction efficiency. Take 1 or more pounds of fruit and juice it. Weigh the juice and then determine the extraction ratio for juice vs. raw weight. From there you can figure out how much fruit will be required to make a given volume of cider. For example, if you weigh 1 kg of apples and extract 750 gm of juice, then your extraction rate is 0.75. It's important to weigh rather than measure the juice because you need to know what portion of the fruit is liquid, and what part is dry matter. If you then say that you want 20L of juice, take 20L and divide it by 0.75 and that will tell you how many kg of apples you need. I wager the juicers are more efficient than the grinder/press method.

Example: 19L (cider) / 0.75 (extraction rate) = 25.3 kg (fruit)

So for this example, you would need 55.6 lb (25.3 x 2.2) or just over 11 pounds per US gal.
 

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