Pear wine questions

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chantling

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I've got 25lbs of ripe bartlett pears - I'm planning to freeze them tonight, thaw and chop them tomorrow, and get my must started for pitching the yeast Sunday. I'm planning on doing something like:

25lbs pears
2-5 11.5oz cans Welch's Niagara grape juice (or table sugar if I can't find it)
1 oz double-strength vanilla extract (more or less, to taste)
1 cinnamon stick
5 tsp yeast nutrient
Acid blend to ph of ~3.4
Water to 5 gallons​

I was planning to buy several of the Welch's grape juice concentrate cans and use those in addition to sugar to raise the SG to around 1.100, figuring it would add a little more complexity and body to the wine than straight table sugar.

I'd like to make a medium to semi-dry wine. I don't want a (strongly) spiced wine, like a holiday wine, but I'd like a faint hint of vanilla and cinammon in it. And I'd prefer around 14% ABV. I'm trying to make this with the rather limited ingredients I have on hand rather than ordering more specifically for this batch. I'm on kind of a shoestring budget, and I don't have room in the freezer to keep the pears while I wait for a shipment to arrive anyway. With that in mind, I had a couple of questions:

  • Is a ph of around 3.4 a good starting point?
I can't really find any specifics for pear wine on the net; every recipe I find seems to be along the lines of "throw some pears in a bucket with water, add some acid and sugar, sprinkle on some yeast and wait," so I arbitrarily picked a level here that I thought would be good to retard spoilage. I don't know enough about fermenting to calculate what the finished ph will be, and whether it will balance with the wine's flavor. Pears don't strike me as being terribly acidic, so I'd imagine I might need to add quite a bit of acid blend (mine's 50M-40C-10T) to bring the ph down to that level. Because my blend's so high in malic acid, I'm worried that adding a lot will add an undesirable greenness to the finished wine, and I don't want to ml ferm afterwards. Should I use lemon or lime juice instead? Or am I worrying about nothing?

  • Is my target SG good for the alcohol level I'm looking for?
I'm thinking that should end up a dry 14% ABV roughly? The only yeast I have on hand is Lalvin EC-1118 and Red Star Premier Cuvee, both of which ferment to 18%. I have them specifically because of their high temp tolerance, and to be honest, I was planning on using them for mead and was attracted to MOAR ALCOHOL! I don't want rocket fuel with no aroma; I know I can let the yeast burn through all the sugar to make a dry wine, stabilize, then backsweeten, but would it lose its "pearyness"? I've read fruit wines are much less robust than grape wines when it comes to holding their characteristics when fermented to dryness. Would I be better off starting with a higher SG, keeping a close eye on the gravity as it ferments, and stabilizing it at my target alcohol level before fermentation is complete? If so, any suggestions for SG that won't be too sweet if stabilized around 14%?

  • Should I add a cup of strong tea to the must for tannin?
I don't have tannin, and I can't see the white grape juice adding much to the mix. I figure the wine will need to be able to be stored for up to a couple of years, and I'm picturing the tannin contrasting nicely with the pears' fruity sweetness. Or would it dull and muddy the clean flavor? I could throw some oak chips in while aging, but I've read oaking fruit wines can damage the fruit character. Thoughts?

  • Will adding pectic enzyme at a later date be very effective?
Pear wines seem to be notoriously difficult to clarify, and as I'll probably be giving away quite a bit of it, I'd like it to be clear. Unfortunately, I don't have any pectic enzyme on hand to add to the must. I've read it's most effective when added before pitching the yeast. There are no HBS anywhere near me, to my knowledge, and I have no intention of paying $5 shipping for a $2 order of enzyme. I'll be placing an order in a month or two, and can get it then. Will it be at all effective at that point? Also, I planned on using Sparkalloid to clarify - has anybody used this with pear wine? Is there another product which would work better?

  • Should I wait to add the cinnamon and vanilla to the secondary? Or after stabilizing?
Again, I don't want a spiced wine, just a hint of vanilla and cinnamon to go with the pears. I'm thinking cinnamon braised pears on vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day, rather than some eggnog-like dessert wine. I figured I'd add 'em to the primary, then add more to the secondary if necessary. Waste of time? Will the amounts listed add anything to the flavor?

Sorry for the long-winded first post. I've been reading the forums for a bit now, but figured I'd better register and get these questions answered before I get too far into this batch.:D
 
I can't answer all your qs but 3.4 is the standard target pH for wine. You won't need to add the acid right at the start or in one go so I would suggest waiting a week then adding a bit at a time, test the pH and the taste after each addition. If you use welches that should keep the pH down, if not the amount of acid you need might be too much. Correct pH helps for ageing the wine, at least below 3.8 is desirable, above that camden stops working. No point adding too much acid if it spoils the taste.
I would recommend adding some tannin.
 
Thanks for the reply. I added a little lemon juice as I was chopping the pears to prevent browning, as I have no ascorbic acid. When I added acid blend, I only had to add two tsp to get to 3.4, so it wasn't as bad as I thought.
 
You should check the ph again when racking to secondary, it can change a lot. It always goes up during primary. Right now you're just measuring the pH of the welches.
 
How did your wine turn out? I was hoping to add a hint of cinnamon to my wine. It was 2+ gallons of juice from very late November Thompson grapes off my back fence and I just added a half gallon of pear syrup from 4 qts of canned pears.
For a hint of cinnamon do you have any advice from your experience? How much and when to add it?
 
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