Easy Peasy Pear

Edit! There is no boiling, I couldn't get it to let me submit it with no boiling.

This recipe is similar in principle to the Everyday Simplest Dry Cider.
Here's the difference, it finishes at 1.008-1.009 every single time. And then you prime it and bottle it and let it sit for 3-4 weeks to carb. There's no pasteurizing, there's no kegging required.

I don't know why. I wish I did. I have one theory.

Regarding the FG, I've had another forum member ferment this for me and came up with the same result. Thanks Kgressler.

for 1 gallon, scale up from there, two of the test batches included 5 gallon batches.

equal quantity of:

Generic store brand apple juice.
Heinz brand pear juice from concentrate, w/ ascorbic acid.
(Or Gerber if you are in the US we've tested with this, and it gives the same result)
EC-1118 yeast, per manufacturer dosing (one packet/5 gallons) dry pitched, no rehydration.

Aeration through pouring into the fermenter.

OG should be between 1.047-1.049
ferment for 3 weeks between 54-65F
Prime as normal for whatever volume you would like, my preference is one can thawed FAJC per 5 gallons.
Bottle and carb for 3-4 weeks


Regarding the Heinz, or Gerber, brand pear juice, the ingredients listed are Pear Juice Concentrate, Water, Ascorbic Acid. It's found in the baby food section of many grocery stores, as well as walmart. I suspect that they don't reconstitute it fully, and that we get a higher sorbitol concentration in the end. I talked to people at Heinz, and they don't specifically test it for sorbitol levels.

Here was their response "As per your inquiry, we do not test for sorbitol in pear juice, and none is added to the juice. There would be some naturally occurring. based on our recipe: ~2 g of sorbitol / 100g of juice, which is ~3g / 125mL (1/2 cup) of juice." Based on that amount the sorbitol shouldn't be able to account for the residual sugars. But results are results, even if I don't understand them.

This isn't just stalled, as I've had a bottle travel away from me in the heat of summer, and come back to me in early spring after being bumped around a bit, with no difference in carbonation. It doesn't seem to be stuck, or stalled, it's finished. No pasteurizing has been done, and no sorbates, or metabisulphites, have been added.

as the next step, I have a batch kicked off using s-04

FAJC is frozen apple juice concentrate?

jtratcliff said:

FAJC is frozen apple juice concentrate?

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Yes

I might have to try this for my family - HWMO and I are the ones who like things dry, children and sister like things a bit sweeter.
You say 1 can FAJC - is this 12oz or 16oz? I have been using about 2oz per gallon, which seems to be pretty lightly fizzed if the cider is all the way dry first.
Thanks!

Very intrigued, and appreciative of posting, but I am curious what degree of "pear flavour" comes through vs. a normal perry.. or apple flavour for that matter.

Phug, Your recipe includes "boiling time" of 1 minute? What's being boiled? Why? Might that be the cause of the final gravity? Are you setting pectins with the boil?

bernardsmith said:

Phug, Your recipe includes "boiling time" of 1 minute? What's being boiled? Why? Might that be the cause of the final gravity? Are you setting pectins with the boil?

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Let me see if I can edit that out, the recipe template wouldn't accept it without a boil time

stella_tigre said:

I might have to try this for my family - HWMO and I are the ones who like things dry, children and sister like things a bit sweeter.
You say 1 can FAJC - is this 12oz or 16oz? I have been using about 2oz per gallon, which seems to be pretty lightly fizzed if the cider is all the way dry first.
Thanks!

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As long as the can does not contain more than 140g of sugars it does not matter weather 8, 12, or 16 oz. check the nutritional info on yours as this does vary.

clone63 said:

Very intrigued, and appreciative of posting, but I am curious what degree of "pear flavour" comes through vs. a normal perry.. or apple flavour for that matter.

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I don't have a very refined palate. Put it more on the appley side, less pear

I wanted to wait till I was completely done with my batch before I commented.
I ended up doing 2.5 gallons of store bought juice and 2.5 gallons of gerber pear juice. I had an extra quart of pear so I topped it off.
I started on Jan 30th My SG was 1.054 after 22 days I transferred it to a secondary because I needed my 6 gallon carboy. Gravity was 1.008. Seemed really fast considering my temps were running low to mid 50's the entire fermentation.
After about 2 weeks in the secondary I bottled it. Its been conditioning now almost a month.
A side note I did one gallon and added xylitol to it more of an experiment to see if I liked the sweetness it gave.

This pear batch definitely not as dry and has a little more sweetness than the simple recipe phug uses. I couldn't taste any pear at all. But from talking with phug he said it more about keeping more sweetness than getting pear flavor. So in this case it worked.

The xylitol wasnt too bad. No chemically taste that I can tell. The wife liked it so thats a plus. I didnt really measure it I just added some into till it tasted okay with her. I would estimate I used 1/3 of a cup for one gallon.

I will say this is a better recipe then the simple cider you have although with the cost of the pear cider it can get pretty pricey compared the one with all apple juice.

Its pretty fool proof if someone is looking for a very simple cider.

Thanks kgressler. I like to think it's an alternative to stovetop pasteurizing

Good point although I've found cold crashing Ale yeast with fresh pressed cider to work very well while keeping more sweetness and actually getting some apple flavor. Only problem I'm running into is clarity. Although I got a pretty clear cider with honey.

But this recipe is pretty fool proof. Definitely a good starting point for someone wanting to give cider a try for the first time.

One thing I have noticed as time goes by is they just arent carbing up as well as the simple cider for some reason.
Funny thing is I actually used a full can of FAJC instead of 3/4 like I did on the simple cider. Its been 4 weeks now and the carb pretty damn light. Its been warmer here lately which I figured would cause it ti carb faster but it just hasnt really carbed well yet.

Thoughts?

mine did take longer to carb than the simple cider, I did notice they took about 2 weeks longer to hit full carb. so let's revise that to 6 weeks. But they did catch up. I brought some of the Easy Peasy Pear to a family gathering, and the carb was where it needed to be. Chilled for 3 days, put into a cooler with icepacks for the overnight trip and then poured the next day in the afternoon.

I'm also taking some of this batch to a LHBS bottle swap next week.

This is the first time I didnt use a test plastic bottle for a batch since there was little worry about s'ploding bottles.
I wait a few more weeks before I pop one open.

Just about 6 weeks now and I still have very little carb. Very strange. Popped one open on Saturday and it was still. Just a slight hiss when I popped the cap.
I cant imagine I did anything different then before so this really makes no sense why. I guess I just be patient and wait another week or 2.

That's odd, and I can't explain it. Took some of those to a bottle swap and carb was fine. And the first batch was probably 3-3.5 vol.


But again there's lots that I can't explain about this recipe

Phug, Ever seen the pear juice on sale?

Always can get the AJ for $1 litre at various places, Superstore, Walmart, etc.

I have never seen it on sale, always 1.85-2.00 per litre/$

So I gave this a try today on a whim with one exception. 2 gallons store brand apple juice and 2 gallons Gerber pear juice, but I used Nottingham rather than EC-1118 since it was the easiest for me to get at the time.

OG came to 1.049. It's only been a couple hours, so not much to report yet

Sounds great, I have a batch that is done, and really needs to be bottled, using S-04 so the results will probably be similar. Maybe I'll have time to bottle it on Father's day.

Just want to update my batch. After 9 weeks I opened another one up and it was finally carbed up.
The ones I bottled with xylitol tasted great. I will definitely not hesitate to use it again.

kgressler said:

Just want to update my batch. After 9 weeks I opened another one up and it was finally carbed up.
The ones I bottled with xylitol tasted great. I will definitely not hesitate to use it again.

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Glad to hear it finally carbed even though it took it's time.

I think I'll see if I can revise the conditioning time in the recipe to reflect the longer than usual carb time.

Nope, can't edit it.

Ok guys, expect 6-9 weeks for proper carbonation.

and if it helps anyone, I did some labels for this cider

It's too hot for me to get excited about brewing today so I'm going to try this. I found the Gerber pear juice at the supermarket, and was going to get Tree Top apple juice as I've heard that recommended but they also had Tree Top crisp cider. This being my first attempt at a hard cider I'm a little clueless, but I assume that's just different types of apples? Anyway I went with the cider hope that works okay.

For yeast I've got either some S-05 or notty that I want to use up, you guys have an opinion? Chops, any f/u on your batch? Was gonna ferment low anyway so probably doesn't make a huge difference I'm guessing.

chickypad said:

It's too hot for me to get excited about brewing today so I'm going to try this. I found the Gerber pear juice at the supermarket, and was going to get Tree Top apple juice as I've heard that recommended but they also had Tree Top crisp cider. This being my first attempt at a hard cider I'm a little clueless, but I assume that's just different types of apples? Anyway I went with the cider hope that works okay.

For yeast I've got either some S-05 or notty that I want to use up, you guys have an opinion? Chops, any f/u on your batch? Was gonna ferment low anyway so probably doesn't make a huge difference I'm guessing.

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I'm actually going to be kegging this tomorrow so I can't give much feedback on the notty yet. It's been just under 3 weeks now. There was a decent amount of activity for a week and a half but it's mostly ceased now. Kept it at 65. I took a gravity reading a few days ago and it was at 1.009. Taste was decent (though room temp, uncarbed and quite yeasty). A couple days in the keg should fix all that. There is definitely apple and a bit of sweetness left over. But for the sake of science I would say go with the S-05 since nobody has tried it yet haha. But I think it will end up being extremely similar regardless of which yeast you use.

Edit: depending on the sweetness I may add some splenda or some other sweetener to the keg after its chilled and carbed. I'll figure that all out tomorrow.

Chops89 said:

But for the sake of science I would say go with the S-05 since nobody has tried it yet haha. But I think it will end up being extremely similar regardless of which yeast you use.

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For science, I'll do it!!
Sanitizing the fermenter now.

Kegged my batch with the 05 today, it finished at 1.007. I had just slightly more than half apple cider to pear juice so sounds like in line with what everyone is seeing.

Bottled my Batch of Easy Peasy Pear using S-04 the other day.
started the batch on 3/15/2015 I used
2L Heinz pear juice 1.053 OG
1.9 Litres Rougemont Apple juice made from Ontario Apples, not from Concentrate w/ added vitamin C 1.043 OG
Blended OG 1.047
2.0 g of S-04 from a previously opened, but vaccuum sealed, and stored in a chest freezer. pitched dry with no rehydration at 68F.
Fermented at 60-65 ambient basement temp.

04/24 Fermentation long since completed, dropped clear, took at refractometer sample reading 1.020 which estimated 1.008 FG
07/25 Finally got around to bottling it with 55 ml of AJC. Confirmed FG with hydrometer at 1.008 SG 5.1% ABV

TLDR
S-04 seems to have a very similar result with this juice blend as EC-1118. looking more like it's just a property of the juice blend, and not of how a specific yeast attenuates it.

I've bottled and carbed my Easy Peasy Pear just the other day. Done and Done, and WOW is this stuff good. Dry, Fruity, slightly tart, with a hint of lingering sweetness. This is a winner, i just wish pear juice was cheaper. I'd love to do a 5 gallon batch. (i did 3) Thanks for the recipe.

Glad you like it. Yeah, it's a bit steep as a five gallon recipe, which I've done, but I think it's worth it

chickypad said:

Kegged my batch with the 05 today, it finished at 1.007. I had just slightly more than half apple cider to pear juice so sounds like in line with what everyone is seeing.

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1.007, 1.009, etc. I don't get it. How does simple fruit juice and EC-1118 stop before 1.000?

MarkKF Supposedly pear has a certain percentage of unfermentable sugars.

MarkKF said:

1.007, 1.009, etc. I don't get it. How does simple fruit juice and EC-1118 stop before 1.000?

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I have no idea, but it does with this recipe and does so consistently. Empirical results are messed up that way. I have my theory but unless it's a special variety of pear, or it's still concentrated beyond normal levels, then I can only account for about .004 Sg of sorbitol content.

But it is what it is

did the same juice blend with some 3942 belgian wheat, we'll see how that goes

This recipe is for 50/50 ratio of pear to apple. I followed it with my 3 gallon batch and it came out super great. Has anyone ever done a 100% pear or 75% pear along these lines? If so, how does it come out?

I was thinking of doing a 1 gal test of pure gerber pear juice.

I haven't done pure pear yet or even 75% pear. I say go for it. I'd love to hear your results.

I just pitched a gallon today. Lalvin E1118 yeast, 1 gal gerber juice, and enough honey to bump the SG to 1.060. A pinch of pectic enzyme though probably not needed, as well as some yeast nutrient. I'll see how the same process ends up and report back.

That's a lot of variables. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. The yeast nutrient might let it go down further, or it might not