Pear Beer

Gasp! Apparently not many venture down this road. I have a recipe here that I felt turned out very well, and just in time for summer consumption.

**WARNING** pears turn to holy hell when you freeze/thaw/ferment them, so be prepared for notable losses unless you have a centrifuge at your disposal...

Base for Pear beer
Brew Type: All Grain Date: 5/20/2011
Style: American Pale Ale Brewer:
Batch Size: 9.00 gal Assistant Brewer:
Boil Volume: 10.30 gal Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 % Equipment: My Equipment
Actual Efficiency: 60.9 %

Taste Rating (50 possible points): 35.0
Tasted pretty good after sitting for ~6 weeks way from the pear mush. Pears ended up taking a lot of beer away due to siphoning issues (read: mushy!, ended up with ~4 gal beer). Lightly pear-y with good light beer backbone. Seemed pretty well balanced

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
18.50 lb Pear (3.0 SRM) Adjunct 50.7 %
7.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 19.2 %
7.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) UK (1.0 SRM) Grain 19.2 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 5.5 %
1.00 lb Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 2.7 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2.7 %
1.00 oz Citra [14.10%] (60 min) Hops 24.2 IBU

Beer Profile Estimated Original Gravity: 1.057 SG (1.045-1.056 SG) Measured Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.015 SG (1.010-1.015 SG) Measured Final Gravity: 1.009 SG
Estimated Color: 10.7 SRM (4.0-11.0 SRM) Color [Color]
Bitterness: 24.2 IBU (20.0-40.0 IBU) Alpha Acid Units: 1.6 AAU
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 5.6 % (4.5-5.7 %) Actual Alcohol by Volume: 5.3 %
Actual Calories: 220 cal/pint


Mash Profile Name: My Mash Mash Tun Weight: 0.00 lb
Mash Grain Weight: 36.50 lb Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Sparge Water: 14.68 gal Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE

Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Step Heat to 152.0 F over 2 min 152.0 F 60 min



Carbonation and Storage Carbonation Type: Kegged (Forced CO2) Carbonation Volumes: 2.4 (2.3-2.8 vols)
Estimated Pressure: 12.7 PSI Kegging Temperature: 43.0 F
Pressure Used: - Age for: 4.0 Weeks
Storage Temperature: 52.0 F


Notes
pears added to 5-6 gallons of wort. rest left /s pears..

Again, sorry for the crappy presentation of the recipe here...


I took this batch and kegged ~4 gallons without any pears to drink and see what the effect of the acidulated malt would be. Turned a basic/blah beer into something that people kept coming back for more. The acid also helped with the pear side too (i picked the pears and I'm pretty sure they were just Bartlet type pears, so pretty meh flavor/tannin wise). That's why I used the acid malts here in the first place, sorta like adding tannins to a wine with grape skins (e.g. Welches wine versus Pinot Noir).

Tasted my thief sample today and was pleased. ended up with a clean, simple beer with a nice pear taste (by nice, i mean pretty subtle since I don't like really fruity/sweet things typically.) I could see myself having more than one of these and will definitely feel comfortable handing this to company.

ftlstrings - total zombie topic and I don't know if you're still knocking about, but this is the only info I could find on a home brewed pear beer! I too am brewing a pear beer, so wanted to thank you for the information. However, I will be using about 3kg pears per gallon!

I brewed a Kölsch and put about 1.5 gallons over .75 gal of homemade pear puree (peeled). After 2 weeks I filtered through a fine muslin bag and squeezed the pear mash dry. Delicious crisp ale with a hint of acid and sour. Haziness came in with tannins (I guess).