Canned Pears for pear cider

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wreckinball9

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seeing how the only actual pear juice i can find is $2.50 per 32 oz in the baby section at the super market, does anyone see a problem with using a blender to liquify a few cans of pears for added flavor?

i was thinking of using 4 32oz cans of pears in heavy syrup (for higher abv) per 5 gallon batch. (obviously no preservatives). i would be using about 3 gallons of basic apple juice and 1 gallon of the expensive pear juice and about 1 gallon of liquified (using the blender) canned pears in total. any reason why this wouldnt work?

(also thinking about using a few pounds of fresh pears in the secondary when the time comes)
 
I would raise three concerns... 1) the canning process requires the contents to be brought up what many call sealing heat (causes the can to seal) and that exposes the fruit inside to release some pectin because of protien damage... 2) Its stored in mettel and most caned fruit has a metalic taste to begin with, at least a little... in fermentation this might get scrubbed out, or it might not and everything that balences it might i get scrub out instead... which leave you with steel aged pear cider and that doesnt taste all that great... and 3) because of teh canning process alot of the sugar is in that thick syrup you mentioned and its almost like concentrate, its hard to tell exactally how much you would have to dilute it to make proper stock for a cider...

I would sugest going to your local health food store they will likely have larger bottles of pear juice for roughly the same price... juice used specifally for babies or young children is often blened with certin vitimins and minerals which would make your cider rather strange... or at least good for you in that you will get the 18 essential vitimins and minerals which babies need to grow big and strong... so check your local organic or health food store and see if you can buy regular pear juice there.

Cheers
 
thanks for the reply Jack. yeah i tried Trader Joes yesterday which was a first for me, im not into the organic hippy food. (or prices.) to my dissapointment i didnt see any pear juice.

they did have pure blueberry juice though, which is hard to find. most of the stuff in the supermarket is blueberry/apple etc. Tusch's thread on blueberry cider has got me interested in that too.

if i cant find a better source for real pear juice i may still give the canned stuff a try, and i'll keep you guys updated on the results.
 
I think Melana has tried a pear cider thing with a pear necture. I think she found it in the spanish food section of our local grocery store. It comes in on of those plastic carton things you see chicken stock packaged in. If I remember correctly she only did about a gallon. I'll see if she can provide anymore info.
 
We have a large spanish (and Goya) foods section in our supermarket and i bought quarts of the nectar for $1/quart on sale. The other option if you have one in NH might be Ocean State Job Lot... they frequently have similar items on sale.
 
I tried Job Lots this week too. But i will give the Goya section a further look. thanks folks. Melana, how did yours come out ?
 
well thank you Big John and Melana. I found the GOYA pear nectar, and even at $1.99/32 oz i was happy to get the only five they had in stock. here's what i put together:

- 3 gallons landers AJ
- 5 quarts (5 x 32 oz) GOYA Pear nectar
- 1 quart gerber pear juice from the baby section
- 2 28 oz canned pears
- 2 lbs light brown sugar
pitched on used cake of 4184- wyeast sweet mead yeast

will rack to a secondary with fresh pears and age for 6 months or so.
 
With the canned pears you may still have the metal taste. Better to go with fresh pear at the start and add more sugar if needed. Heavy syrup is nectar and fructose anyway.
 
I would throw in some pectic enzyme to deal with the pectin you'll definitely get with that. Least, would for wine, not sure if you'd nonrmally use that with a cider, fwiw.
 
Love how well that stuff works. Using unfiltered AJ, or even wines I've made straight from fruit, that were insanely cloudy at outset, then look at the crystal clear bottles on rack, just amazing.
 
the yeast cake i pitched onto was from a hard apple cider that i had started two months ago. it stopped fermenting about two weeks ago and has been cold crashing.

i dumped the ingredients of the pear cider in right after i racked off the apple. it hasnt started fermenting yet, but i added some yeast nutrient and ill let it sit. these yeasties will wake up even though they have been cold crashed right?
 
wow i guess the yeast did wake up alright! i had been gone from home for about a week, and when i went home to check it yesterday, the stopper and airlock had blown accross the room and there was dried pear cider 6 feet high on the wall and all over the floor. holy shnikies
 
UPDATE:
well the pear cider has been bottled for about two months. i naturally carbed it.

Unfortunately, it is barely drinkable at best. it is wicked tart and doesnt taste much like pear at all. hopefully in another 6 months to a year the tartness will mellow, but as for now its a big dissapointment.
 
I didn't see the original thread but I'm not surprised at the outcome. Pears don't have a lot of flavour to begin with, and are usually used just to add fermentable sugars. I used about 1/4 pear in my cider this year just because I had a tree full of pears.
Real perry is made with special high tannin perry pears.
 
I didn't see the original thread but I'm not surprised at the outcome. Pears don't have a lot of flavour to begin with, and are usually used just to add fermentable sugars. I used about 1/4 pear in my cider this year just because I had a tree full of pears.
Real perry is made with special high tannin perry pears.

true that brother. i tried again with a Vintners Fruit Base from Austin Home Brew and that doesnt taste very peary so far either. i think i will end up adding a 750ml of Absolute Pear and/or some artificial pear flavoring. oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Plum on the other hand, makes an awesome wine!
 
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