Hi, I'm trying to make a champagne pear mead. I'm hoping to serve in 6 months? I've made many different still meads so I do have some experience. Hears my resipe fo 6gal:
18lb of orange blossom honey
1- 96oz can of vintner's harvest "pear"
Two packs of 71B-1122 yeast
Pectic enzyme
Yeast energizer
Yeast nutrients
Ferement honey for 1 month @ 65F or until sg stabilizes
Add pectic enzyme and "pear" in mesh bag--2ndary four months
Coarse filter into keg and carb for 3 weeks then bottle
Any suggestions??? Thanks!!!
Well, on the face of it, it looks ok to start, other than perry is basically a cider made from fermented pear juice, a champagne is nothing like it.
I've seen ad's for the Vintners harvest stuff, but it's not available here, so is there actually any point in putting it in a mesh bag, unless it's actually just chopped pears, because if it's like some sort of "apple sauce", then the bag is a waste of effort/time etc...
As for just aiming for a certain amount of time ? well that's not usually how it'll happen is it......
I guess that if you're going to keg it, it will be force carbonated, so it doesn't really matter about the gravity so much at start (18lb of honey is about what I'd use and expect to be fine with i.e. 3lb per gallon). The 71B should do fine with that. 6lb of pear "something or other" ? Well yes, I'd have thought that you'd be able to get a nice enough pear flavour coming through as you allude to putting it in after the ferment has finished.
Pears can be a little like plums i.e. a swine to get it cleared. And I certainly wouldn't want to not get it clear first, as any particulates can play hell with dispensing from a keg (yes I know that there's some stuff that comes out fine, even if it's a "cloudy" product - they seem to be the exception to the rule). So I'd have thought you'd want to get it cleared before you keg it, also stabilise it as you wouldn't want to restart a ferment once you add the pear, which is possible if it's not stabilised, yet that'd be ok if it's being force carbonated (not if it's being naturally carbonated/conditioned in bottle).
dunno if that helps any
regards
fatbloke