Pear vs apple cider

[cottonwoodks]

We've mostly grown Asian pears just for eating, and never had a problem with fireblight until one really bad year about three or four years ago when ALL the pear trees in town got it. I lost my absolute favorite Asian pear tree but the others recovered just fine. But I've planted a couple perry pear trees in my new orchard--Butt and Hendre's Huffcap. In about five years, we'll see how they work for making perry. They're not supposed to be edible out of hand at all.

 

[gregbathurst]

It might be a bit more than 5 years, perry trees are a bit shy of flowering when young. The old saying is "plant perry pears for your heirs".

 

[cottonwoodks]

It might be a bit more than 5 years, perry trees are a bit shy of flowering when young. The old saying is "plant perry pears for your heirs".

Alas.....but fair enough. I'm patient, and have plenty of other fruit trees about.

 

[rlmiller10]

We've mostly grown Asian pears just for eating, and never had a problem with fireblight until one really bad year about three or four years ago when ALL the pear trees in town got it. I lost my absolute favorite Asian pear tree but the others recovered just fine. But I've planted a couple perry pear trees in my new orchard--Butt and Hendre's Huffcap. In about five years, we'll see how they work for making perry. They're not supposed to be edible out of hand at all.

feel for you. Moved to a new place this year so starting all over on the orchard. Last one was 14 years old so just started to produce well and then said goodbye.

 

[wasully]

My experience with Perry is the same. My son said he judged an amateur competition and the Perry was the best he ever had. But it was made from an obscure pear only found in the UK. That said I wonder if pear juiced mixed with crabapples would be more interesting.

$5 says it was an actual perry pear.

Like (apple) cider, perry/poire/pear cider is much improved by fruit actually intended for fermentation. You know, like wine, that elusive moonshine specific corn, etc. Stuff that eats well doesn't necessarily ferment well.

It does remind me more of a white wine though. Whereas cider seems closer to an ale to me, generally.

It's not always popular to point out, but fruit variety really does matter. Okay, if you're back sweetening it to 1.015 with concentrate and drinking your batch in two weeks, it doesn't. But if you're wanting anything but that or an acid bomb, it does. I'm not sure why people get sensitive/disregard that about fruit, but acknowledge that grain bills and hop choice matter a lot in beer.

 

[cottonwoodks]

feel for you. Moved to a new place this year so starting all over on the orchard. Last one was 14 years old so just started to produce well and then said goodbye.

Wow--that would be a real bummer. Fortunately for us, we're keeping our in-town fruit trees, which were selected to be disease-resistant and good keepers.

 

[BrewSavage]

I got 5 gallons of pear juice from an Amish grower/juicer maker. I'm fermenting with Nottingham yeast. I will report back in a couple of months.

 

[globell]

Much like cider apples vs table apples for hard cider or red eating grapes vs say cab sauv or Pinot noir...eating pears offer very little vs Perry pears.

perry is very delicate but can bevery flavourful if you are skilled and have the right fruit (either or) and allow the Perry to develop over time (say a year).

I medalled at Glintcap this year for Perry and I used tannic pears. Amazing floral notes. Delicate overall but a lot of flavour and subtly changes through a long finish.

Pears in a blend offer a natural Sweetness which lend its self to off dry cider.

Another note on pears is that dessert pears are often high in pH and that leads to watery and insipid tasting drink. Be sure to adjust your pH to no less than 3.6 per ferment if you are used to more acidic forward cider. At 3.6 my ciders normally end at about 3.8 which isn’t ideal so I shoot for about 3.45 resulting in about 3.65 final. This allows the acid to give tre cider or Perry structure and not be flabby. Not saying you have to, we all do things differently, just a suggestion that works for me. Warmer climates have higher pH too so we all have are hurdles. Some fermentors have too much acid, some too little.