First time perry

[BeerPioneer]

Hello. I'm looking for advice on making Perry. I have access to Bartlett's, bosc, and Flemish pears. I live on an orchard, and if a pear isn't perfect for market, it gets tossed on the ground.

I bought a large (30gallon?) wine press and grape crusher hoping it would work on cider or too.
The first pear up for harvest are French Bartlett's. I picked up about 200 lb of them, started to quarter them to run them through the grape/fruit crusher, and they would not go through as they were too hard. I put them in the freezer.
As of now, the plan is to see how they go through the fruit crusher and hopefully press them.
I have a grainfather, so I was planning on bringing the juice up to 165 adding yeast nutrient, and maybe a little brown sugar or corn sugar if the gravity is too low, cooling it, and put it into the sanitized fermenter. I have a few packs of dry cider yeast.

Questions are...
Do I need pectic enzyme?
Should I blend different pear varieties together?
Should I add some apples to the mix and if so what kind?
Should I use campden tabs?
Can I just press the thawed fruit?

I'm 6 months new to brewing beer, and have a few ok- good brews down, and I keg. I do have a bunch of bottles for cider, and 6-7 fermenting vessels.

Any advice is welcome

 

[gregbathurst]

There is no point heating the juice. You may have trouble pressing the pears, they will be very soft, adding some apple might help with the pressing, or rice hulls. Blending is ok. If you can get hold of some crab apples it will make the perry a lot nicer.