noob questions

I have several two quart jars full of apple juice that my maw-in-law made for my wife to make jelly with. Well, we have enough jelly for several years and I want to make hard cider with the juice. It is still pretty and hasn’t turned dark, but there is a Lot of pulp in the bottom of the jars.

I am planning to use gallon water jugs with a stopper and S type air lock…is that ok? I am using all of my fermentors and carboys for beer.

So I am wondering if I just leave the pulp or if I try to strain it or what.

Also we have several gallons of homemade pear juice the same way. Would that make good cider or wine?

We also have some muscadine juice. I know I have heard of muscadine wine. We are not big wine drinkers but it would be a shame for it to go to waste…

tndave said:

I am planning to use gallon water jugs with a stopper and S type air lock…is that ok? I am using all of my fermentors and carboys for beer.

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Sure, no problem there. You could also just use sanitized tinfoil, which works just as well.

tndave said:

So I am wondering if I just leave the pulp or if I try to strain it or what.

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I'd probably strain the pulp, but others might tell you not to. Maybe do a few with pulp and a few without.

tndave said:

Also we have several gallons of homemade pear juice the same way. Would that make good cider or wine?

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Nope. Cider comes from apples, wine from grapes, and a fermented beverage made from pears is called Perry. I've never tried it myself, but it does sounds pretty tasty. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole ton of info on HBT about perry, but you could probably dig up some if you tried hard enough. If not, here's a link to another site with a bit of info: The Real Cider and Perry Page

tndave said:

We also have some muscadine juice. I know I have heard of muscadine wine. We are not big wine drinkers but it would be a shame for it to go to waste…

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I have no idea what a muscadine is. I would have guessed a type of fish.

But hey, if it's a fruit than it's probably fermentable. Try it out, experiment, go wild. Worst case scenario, it tastes like crap but you learn something. Best case scenario, it tastes awesome and you've sparked the next big thing!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go figure out what the hell a muscadine is.

Update:

Wikipedia said:

The muscadine berries range from bronze to dark purple to black in color when ripe. They have skin sufficiently tough that eating the raw fruit often involves biting a small hole in the skin to suck out the pulp inside. Muscadines are not only eaten fresh, but also are used in making wine, juice, and jelly.

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Apparently someone's made wine from muscadine before. Good luck, I hope that comes out tasty!

I would disagree in saying wine is made from grapes considering how many of my wines are not made from grapes. But yeah as llama said, pear juice makes perry, I haven't tried it but it is supposed to be great. I say you ferment it all, and in the end call it what you want. And the pulp, I'd leave it in, but that's just me as llama said, everyone has their own preferences.

Im new to this forum but thought I would chime in re: Perry
I've been making perry from my own pear trees for years, I have always had excellent results, with less chance of an off batch then my apple ciders. The SP is quite alot higher then apple juice, but the end alcohol % on par, or even lower then my apple cider, due to unfermentable sugars. The result is usually a nice (tad sweeter) drink.
I try to make mine as dry as possible and always carbonate.

What kind of yeast do you use? I had bought Safeale s-04 for the cider, but haven't done anything yet.

I just started a perry tonight. I'll check in to see how yours is going.