Trou8le007
New Member
I am a noob and just started my first batch last night. I know I am getting way ahead of my self but has anyone done a pear cider and if so what recipe did you use. thanks
Any one have a good Pear Cider recipe
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I haven't done one, sorry.. but it's called a Perry not cider. Where can you get pear juice?
We had a bumper crop of pears a few years ago (when I was just starting to make cider) so I decided to make a Perry. It was just juiced pears and yeast and the end result was quite underwhelming. Not a lot of taste left... a bit bland with no complexity, although I was using EC1118 at the time which probably stripped a bit of flavour. I think that commercial Perry is similar, so I am not a fan.
However I have found that adding about 10% pears to 90% apples produces a cider with just the right amount of residual sweetness. I think that it is due to the higher levels of non-fermentable sorbitol in pears (they have 4-5 times as much as apples, i.e. 2-2.5g/100g), but there might be other reasons.
I guess you could call it "pear cider" because I make my "cherry cider" the same way (about 90% apples then 10% frozen cherries into secondary... freezing naturally breaks the fruit down so the flavour is released).
This approach works quite well for bottle carbonation since you can ferment right down and not lose what seems to be the residual sorbitol sweetness. BTW it seems that some dried fruits also have quite high levels of sorbitol, with Apricots, Plums and Cherries being in the range 4-7g/100g, but I haven't tried using dried fruit.
Extracting your own pear juice is a bit messy as pears are quite soft compared to apples and you end up with a lot of squishy pulp rather than pommace. I found that a firm pear such as beurre bosc with a flesh similar to an apple is the best way to go.
However I have found that adding about 10% pears to 90% apples produces a cider with just the right amount of residual sweetness. I think that it is due to the higher levels of non-fermentable sorbitol in pears (they have 4-5 times as much as apples, i.e. 2-2.5g/100g), but there might be other reasons.
I guess you could call it "pear cider" because I make my "cherry cider" the same way (about 90% apples then 10% frozen cherries into secondary... freezing naturally breaks the fruit down so the flavour is released).
This approach works quite well for bottle carbonation since you can ferment right down and not lose what seems to be the residual sorbitol sweetness. BTW it seems that some dried fruits also have quite high levels of sorbitol, with Apricots, Plums and Cherries being in the range 4-7g/100g, but I haven't tried using dried fruit.
Extracting your own pear juice is a bit messy as pears are quite soft compared to apples and you end up with a lot of squishy pulp rather than pommace. I found that a firm pear such as beurre bosc with a flesh similar to an apple is the best way to go.
Trou8le007
New Member
thanks for the replies. again still new to this whole world so I will learn the terminology soon enough. for now I am just using juice from store bought apple/pear juice.
Blacksmith1
Captain Cheap
like Maylar, I'd like to know where you're getting the pear juice.
Welcome to the whole new world. The store bought pear/apple sounds interesting. My best advice would be to read the sticky on yeast selection at the top of the page. I have used WLP773 and SO4 in the last year in order to try maximising the residual sugar/fruit flavours by not fermenting down to 1.000. They worked O.K. since they stopped around 1.003 or 1.004 and the ciders with both won their sections at our regional agricultural shows. I am also considering WLP002, WLP775, 71B, and CDB for this year's batch (we are just getting into Fall now) so that I can eventually zero in on a favourite. I do agree with a lot of the adverse comments re using a champagne yeast like EC1118 as I found that it worked quite fast but chewed up most of the fruit flavour.
