Advice on Making A Pear Tripel?

[WhitePaw]

We're making a foray into brewing a Belgian Tripel using fresh Bartlett pears.

From what I've read from online research, the best way to retain a pear flavor in the finished beer is to puree the fruit, and then add at flameout so as to sterilize the puree, but not boil the pears to the point that the pectin is released potentially causing cloudiness in the finished product.

Has anyone tried this before? I see a couple posts about prickly pear and quite a few about pear cider, but nothing in the realm of what we're going for.

Starting with a fairly basic tripel recipe. 11.5 lbs of Castle Pilsen malt, 8 oz of Caravienne and 8 oz of Biscuit. 1.5 lbs of light Belgian candy rock. 1 oz. Northern Brewer and 1 oz. Czech Saaz hops. Going to use 8 lbs of pears added as stated before. Using Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey yeast smack pack

 

[motorneuron]

I have not brewed with pears before, but I think you might get even better results if you puree the pears and add them as a secondary addition. I know of two reasons to do it this way: Some of the aroma from the pear will bubble out during the vigorous primary fermentation; and you will have a smaller percentage of simple sugar (sucrose) in the initial fermentation, which is better for the yeast and ensures complete attenuation. On that second point, what is the equivalent of 8 lbs of pear in sucrose? I'm guessing from the internet (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/2005/2) that they're about 10% sugar by mass, so that's about .8 lbs of sugar. Not a giant increase in effective OG, but just make sure you factor that in. For example, if you're going for an overall sweeter beer to balance the mild acid from the fruit (or to keep a "fruit" impression), you might want to lower the actual candy sugar addition and replace it with base malt, which will up the FG a little.

The only other thing I can think of is that the usual big beer notes apply, so you should probably make a starter for the yeast rather than just use a smack pack.

Oh yeah, and if you're worried about pectin haze, you can use pectinase enzyme. I have not done that, either, but it's pretty cheap, and I gather from the internet that you can use it in the wort when you add the yeast (some people do this in winemaking: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/problems.asp ).