Apple-Pear Cider

This is my first Cider attempt, and I wanted to try and get something close to the taste of an Ace Pear Cider. So far, its 12 days into fermentation and I'm getting almost no activity in the airlock. I'm going to leave it in the Primary until tomorrow and then rack it to Secondary for about a week to let it clear out a little. I used Gerber Pear Juice because its the only 100% Pear Juice product I could find.

3g of Tree Top Apple Cider
1g of Tree Top Apple Juice
1.5g of Gerber Pear Juice
2lbs of Light Brown Sugar
1 WLP775 Cider Yeast
1 T Yeast Energizer
3 T Yeast Nutrient

O.G. 1.080
F.G. .999

I basically used the EWAW recipe guidelines to mix my sugar into my juice, save that I heated a 1/2 gallon of Cider and dissolved the sugar into it first, then added it to the Primary. You will get a nice krauzen and very good activity off of this yeast. I have several variations of this recipe depending on how this one turns out to taste once I back sweeten it.

Oops! I had a brainfart there guys. I'm gonna Secondary it for 3 weeks not 1!

This turned out very good once I back sweetened it with 2 cans of Apple Juice Concentrate and 1/2lb of Brown Sugar, and kegged it, and cold crashed it for about a month. I purged the CO2 every few days to keep the sulphur smell from overpowering the cider. I will definately be brewing this one again. We killed a keg of this and EWAW in a week!

a few thoughts...

You don't need cider yeast to do cider. Wine yeast works well, and it is easier to get your hands on.

I'm assuming you added sugar at the beginning to raise the finished alcohol level. Sometimes having a high alcohol content decreases the apple flavor. Granted, wine doesn't taste like grapes...

How can you cold crash after it is kegged? I mean, cold crash is racking, chilling it, and racking again. Did you mean you just kept it cold once kegged?

I use WL cider yeast all the time. I cold crash and place it back into the carboy and let it sit out at room temp for at least two to three weeks and the sulphur smell will disipate. Wyeast cider yeast is pretty good as well. I have never noticed a sulpher smell for that one.

Yeah I know I don' have to use Cider yeast. I wanted to try the WL yeast and see how much of a flavor difference it would have versus using the Montrachet or EC-1118, or D-47 that most people use. Wine yeasts are good for jacking up the abv, but I don't like a super dry Cider. As for the crashing, yeah I crashed it in Secondary and then kegged it and let it sit for a few days before putting it back in the fridge. I was about 6 pints into my Blackberry Cider when I wrote that one so sorry.

All of my Ciders at this point are experimental for me as I just started making Cider's. So far I've used D-47, EC-1118, Montrachet, and the WLP775. On deck is WLP Hefeweizen Yeast, and some good ole Notty.

Out of curiosity, could you taste any pear at all? Regards, GF.

Usually with ciders, I ferment it to the gravity I want, cold crash it in the primary, then (carefully) rack to secondary and let it sit and degas. Even at rather high room temperatures I rarely ever see new fermentation. If I do, I cold crash again and rack again. This is using ale yeast.
Wine and champagne yeast may need a little more encouragement to die or just chill out and stop fermenting.
Having said that, I'm very paranoid and very careful about making certain it's done and avoiding bottle grenades at all costs.

That's why I'm kegging all my ciders. The few that I bottle to age, I leave in the fridge for the entire time they're bottled. I've found that chilling and degassing my keg every couple of days really helps eliminate the sulphur odors that build up too.

As for the Pear being evident in taste, just barely. I'm going to change my Pear/Apple juice ratio on future batches until I've refined it. The Gerber Pear juice is expensive at around $4 a quart, which was my main reason for using a small amount to start with. I know that most Perry's I've had are a blend of Pear and Apple juice, its just a matter of getting the blend right. It was a very good tasting cider as it stands though

To me Ace is dry and has a taste you get when you eat a pear with the skin. You might try slicing up some pears leaving the skin on. Then mash them in the brew bucket with a sanitized potato masher. I like the taste of Ace also and plan on making a batch of perry this summer when the local pears crop comes in. Right now I would have to spend way too much on pears to make it worth while. Also have you tried tasting that gerber pear juice? My one year old likes it so I sampled it one day and found it tasted more like apple concentrate than pear.

Well seeing as how I don't have a cider press, and Gerber is my only option at the moment, I take what I can get. I have tasted it and it didn't taste like apple concentrate to me at all though

I am also making a very similar apple-pear batch, but I am going to use a Burton Ale yeast instead of a cider/champagne or wine yeast. I will be taking gravity at several points and tastes to see how it progresses. I will be mixing a few different apple juice sources as well.

1 gal organic pear juice
1 gal Seneca water/concentrate
2 gal louisburg apple cider
1 gal Motts 100% juice
2 lbs light brown sugar
White Labs Burton Ale Yeast WLP023

Still deciding whether to make this a 4 gal batch and not add water to concentrate.

any opinions?

I also have another thing I was tempted to try out. At costco they have jars of Del Monte pears that you buy in 4 packs. I looked at the lable and didn't see any preservatives listed, so I was thinking of dumping in a few jars of that syrup and all into a mixture apple/pear juice. That should bump up the ABV a bit and give it more of a pear taste.

But I also really like that peel taste that Ace has. I think a few pears added in with the peel would impart some of that to the final product. I'll give it a go this summer when pears are cheap and report back.

Good luck with your perry!

One of the local grocery stores just started carrying a line of Organic juices, and Pear and Apple are among them. I'm just not sure about the juice having wild yeast in it seeing as how its organic pressed juice with no additives at all. A great plus is that the Apple juice comes in 1gal glass bottles so I get more fermenters!

XtremeBrew said:

One of the local grocery stores just started carrying a line of Organic juices, and Pear and Apple are among them. I'm just not sure about the juice having wild yeast in it seeing as how its organic pressed juice with no additives at all.

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What does being organic have to do with wild yeasts? Yes, without additives, the wild yeasts would be alive unless it was pasteurized. It has nothing to do with being organic.

Them being organic has nothing to do with wild yeasts. The fact that its 100% fresh pressed juices does.

why is it that the ingredients of Aces's Perry Cider dont say anthing about pear? just apple and apple concentrate?