Prickly Pear Mead

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I made two, 1 gallon batches because the first fruit I bought was green inside and out. I'm not sure if it was a different type or just not ripe yet. So I decided to continue as planned with the green ones, but also do a batch of the red ones.

I don't have my notes on my, but they are 4 months old now. The green prickley pears have turned into a golden, yellow mead. Unlike everyone else, my red pears have retained a dark pinkish/purple color. I'm not sure why that is. I boiled everything for 40 minutes and I used pectic enzyme. When did you notice significant color change?

I haven't done any taste tests, so I can't comment on that.
 
the green ones are different from the red ones, atleast they can be. you can get both kinds at food city and ranch market here.

me and my wife peeled 13.5 pounds which yielded 11 pounds of peeled fruit. the color is a purple color for sure, it's about to get deeper purple.

I took a tip from olllllo and froze the fruit and defrosted it a couple of times to break down the cell walls. Then i brought the fruit to just below boiling point for about 10 mins before cooling down and putting it in the primary. Added pectic enzyme and nutrient and energizer etc.

I don't think you need to boil fruit you have to peel, should be sanitary inside right? i heated it up just in case tho, might as well be extra cautious on something that takes a year or two.

The prickly pear mead i had at this years homebrew oktoberfest was so smooth and drinkable. I mean, i could drink this stuff like beer. I am thinking it couldn't have been more than 9%, it tasted like it was about 7% but it could have just been well aged. It was kegged and lightly carbed, best mead I have ever had.
 
Wow - How time changes things.

First to add some two cents, I like to chop or super highly chop the fruit, bag it, smash it, freeze it, then bomb it with a little camden tablets. But nowadays I'm just really lazy so I don't mess with with fruits.

I remember living in a house surrounded by banana trees and two lychee trees on each end of the house. I hated having to bag up 20 gallon trash bags of lychee and bringing to school, the beach parks etc and putting a sign on it. "Please take it for free".

If I knew how to homebrew at the time, I would never have made it through college.
 
second fruit addition is in and bubbling away. this stuff is gonna be good and it looks like i should net about 5.5 gallons.

I love lychees, didn't know they had them in hawaii. I used to grab a branch or two at the morning markets when I lived in taiwan and snack on them through out the day.

It would be interesting to to a mead from them.
 
It would be interesting to to a mead from them.

Lychee has the highest concentration of sugar (by weight) of any fruit, second place is the grape (depending on what source you look at, usually these are the top two fruits though), this has lead me to reallly want lychee wine or a melomel, but I have to wait untill harvest season, when it starts to appear in the asian markets around town.

Oooops, OT
 
you can get them canned too.


So, my prickly pear mead hasn't started fermenting again. I am thinking about repitching it. Been a week with new fruit in there and nothing, I am thinking the yeast was dormant for too long....3 months or so.
 
Things I learned from my PP Mead experience.
1)PP has a high concentration of pectin. Boiling the fruit for long periods might break down the pectin but also breaks down the flavor and color. (PP has a light flavor to begin with)
2)Anytime new juice is added, like to the secondary, more pectin enzyme needs to be used (although alcoholic jello does sound appealing).
3)To remove the stickers on the fruit a pair of tongs and the flame from a gas range works quick.
4)A juicer(Juiceman) makes quick work of getting what you want without adding to the lees and reducing your mead production. Just chuck them in and juice is all you get.
5)Use a sweet mead yeast as champagne yeast lowers the gravity to the point of removing the PP sugar and flavor. If you want dry mead use less honey.
6)Use potassium sorbate when fermentation complete.

Hope these tips help anyone making this wonderful elixir.
 
Any idea if you can use green PP fruit? I recently found large quantities for pretty cheap and i want to do 5gals of PP mead and the fruit is ripe but still green? Will it change color or will it work as is?
 
I made my first pp batch about 6 months ago, started off almost hot pink then to a beautiful crimson. had a pretty vigorous fermting for 2 weeks , did all my fermentings in 3 months the bottled tried one at 4 months old and was a nice goldens color, nice but still needs time. I peeld chopped and boiled mine for 2 hours, has anyone tried the PP syrup?? thinking about trying a few gallons of that next time.
 
Any idea if you can use green PP fruit? I recently found large quantities for pretty cheap and i want to do 5gals of PP mead and the fruit is ripe but still green? Will it change color or will it work as is?

I made a gallon with the purple fruit and a gallon with the green. The purple fruit has a much sweeter taste, although after letting them both ferment dry, I thought they both tasted similar at the 3 month mark. I haven't tried tasted them since, so I can't give much of an update.

But if I was going to make a new batch, I would go for the purple ones. The color is too fun.
 
Just found PP fruit at the local grocery store (that's right, in MI) for .59/each. Don't think it'd be worth it to make mead (at least not more than a Gallon for fun) but I'll be trying them out for the first time tonight.
 
We had some friends over last week, and broke out a bottle of this mead, now over five years old. The prickly pear flavor is pronounced, but not as overpowering as it was for the first one or two years. This is a fun one to watch age, and there are still around 6 bottles left.

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Very cool. I haven't opened one in I think 3 years. Mine are nearing 5 year mark come this fall. I think I have around 10 16 oz Grolsch bottles left.

Considering where I now live I may only crack one open every 1-2 years.
 
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