Hey all,
Just wanted to post a little message on my 2011 perry experiment.
Batch details:
Pear juice + 44 oz honey
OG = 1.094
Batch size = 5 gallons.
Yeast = Nottingham
Nutrient - a few tsp of Fermax.
Campden tablets used
Started with 4 gallons of juice @ 1.074 12/13/10. Added another gallon of juice @ 1.094 + 44 oz honey 1/7/11. Still fermenting away in my basement as-of yesterday.
Pear type - "Wild" feral flowering rootstock pears - small brown, hard, grainy pears about the size of a golf ball.
Picked before they freeze - they are quite flavorful and sweet, but amazingly bitter..... Picked after they freeze and turn from yellow/orange to brown, they are *Really* flavorful, sweet and very tangy!
If you live in an area where ornamental flowering pears are common - don't overlook using the small fruits as a bittering/acid addition to perry made from dessert pears (Which can be quite bland) as you would use Crabs in apple cider. Picked before hard freeze, the small pea size pears are quite bitter... Picked after they freeze and turn brown, those small pears take on a totally different character.
Especially keep an eye out for pears that have golfball size brown fruit that is still hanging long into the winter - Apparently, quite a few of these are old rootstock pears that were grown out from perry mill seed.... They become intensely sweet and tangy as they sit on the tree into the winter.....
Thanks
Just wanted to post a little message on my 2011 perry experiment.
Batch details:
Pear juice + 44 oz honey
OG = 1.094
Batch size = 5 gallons.
Yeast = Nottingham
Nutrient - a few tsp of Fermax.
Campden tablets used
Started with 4 gallons of juice @ 1.074 12/13/10. Added another gallon of juice @ 1.094 + 44 oz honey 1/7/11. Still fermenting away in my basement as-of yesterday.
Pear type - "Wild" feral flowering rootstock pears - small brown, hard, grainy pears about the size of a golf ball.
Picked before they freeze - they are quite flavorful and sweet, but amazingly bitter..... Picked after they freeze and turn from yellow/orange to brown, they are *Really* flavorful, sweet and very tangy!
If you live in an area where ornamental flowering pears are common - don't overlook using the small fruits as a bittering/acid addition to perry made from dessert pears (Which can be quite bland) as you would use Crabs in apple cider. Picked before hard freeze, the small pea size pears are quite bitter... Picked after they freeze and turn brown, those small pears take on a totally different character.
Especially keep an eye out for pears that have golfball size brown fruit that is still hanging long into the winter - Apparently, quite a few of these are old rootstock pears that were grown out from perry mill seed.... They become intensely sweet and tangy as they sit on the tree into the winter.....
Thanks