Pears in a juicer vs pears in a garburator and pressed!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

toadie

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 16, 2020
Messages
100
Reaction score
45
Location
London
Ok so i got a lot of bartlett pears. I know bartletts aren't a good choice for cider (perry) but I did a big acid and tanin addition plus some crab apples, fingers crossed. I used a juicer to do half the batch (wow!) and pulverized and pressed the other half. Both batches were the same OG (1049) and are fermenting nicely in separate pails. My question is basically the juicer made pear sauce as opposed to pear juice. I've stirred a few times and am wondering when the best time would be to pour through a mesh bag? I was hoping the solids would fall to the bottom but am guessing that might not happen. I would love to hear anyone's opinion.
 
I had the same issue with some water bomb apples when I put them through the garbage disposal unit. They became puree and clogged my press no I had no choice but to ferment the pulp and hope it settled out. It didn't.

Luckily for me we have cold winters and I froze the entire batch. It didn't freeze into a hard solid block so I was able to break it up and move it into a 5 gallon pail with holes drilled in the bottom that was stacked in another pail.

As it thawed, cloudy apple wine collected in the bottom and the pulp remained in the top.

Another freeze cycle and I had clear applejack which I could have added water to and ended up with clear cider.
 
The best way I've found to deal with pears is to let them get fully ripe, then freeze.
Thaw them out and place in the press whole.
Apply pressure and you get clear juice.
 
I could probably throw them in my secondary freezer\ferm chamber next year. At the moment the pressed juice is done fermenting and the "juiced" sauce is almost done fermenting tho I have been stirring the ? top cap. The plan was to move to secondary soon and put both juices together after checking gravity, pH and tasting. I'll keep you posted but first taste seemed a little underwhelming.
 
The "cap" has sunk. I'll let it sit for another week or two then transfer to secondary. It seems like it might need more acid. I might also throw some oak in there?
 
Well the pears that went through the juicer and were then fermented were a pain to deal with! I had to filter the mess with a mesh sock in a filter. I am assuming oxidation will be a major issue. The perry is also flabby tasting so maybe I will stay away from the free bartletts in the future!
 
They offset the lack of acid in beer they use something bitter. And pears are traditionally accompanied with hi acid apples or crab apples.

I wouldn't give up on the Bartletts just yet! 😊
 
I ran 75 lbs of apples and 15 lbs of bosc pears through a garborator, then pressed it all in my wine basket press, seemed to work fine. I always have a sieve over my collection bucket to catch any large pulp that escapes the press.
It just finished primary fermentation and is now in secondary and starting to clear a bit.
 
Hey Nick good idea. It's pretty clear now but what a mess!

Green I found the slop from the garburator a little runny. It was my first time trying it and had a few escapes while pressing. In fairness I used old sheets with a hole in the middle to fit around the screw part. I'm guessing there is a better system.
 
Well the pears that went through the juicer and were then fermented were a pain to deal with! I had to filter the mess with a mesh sock in a filter. I am assuming oxidation will be a major issue. The perry is also flabby tasting so maybe I will stay away from the free bartletts in the future!
Adding campdon should solve the oxidation hazard, if you don’t object to using it.
 
I did add campden at first. But then I had to strain it after fermentation. It was kind of an experiment before I got the garburator. All I know was that juicer didn't like the job about as much as I didn't like the job!
 
I did add campden at first. But then I had to strain it after fermentation. It was kind of an experiment before I got the garburator. All I know was that juicer didn't like the job about as much as I didn't like the job!

I ran pears through my juicer and I hated the results. Way too much pulp. So I feel your pain. But if the pulp is dropping to the bottom and you can rack the liquid off of it you may have found a viable method that I didn't. If so, hats off to you.

I did recently get some Asian pears and those juiced very nicely. I got lucky in that the orchard had a box of slightly beaten up Asian pears for a bit less than a box of pristine ones.
 
I’ve been told that when you press pears you need to add rice hulls to the pressings. This will give more “room” for the juice to separate out from the pulp. When I juiced pears, I used a juicer and it sucked! Lots of pear sauce... still made a pretty good perry but I haven’t done it again! Yet.
Jeff
 
So it has been a while since posting this thread. The perry looks and tastes ok. It's a little cloudy and the taste is thin. My biggest problem is that it only fermented to 1.010ish. I did have some minor mould issues and used campden tabs sparingly because I intend to bottle carb.

I bottled a few plastic bottles and added some carb tabs at my last racking. The bottles feel pretty hard, I might drink one sooner than later. I also got 4 oz of brewer's best natural pear flavoring and poured most of that into my carboy. (I feel like a cheat but it does taste considerably better).

My question is whether I will get bottle bombs if I add my dextrose and bottle as normal? I plan on doing this in the next month. Alternatively I could wait much longer and make still cider. This would be the perfect opportunity to keg it and forget it (if I had the technology). I could also heat pasteurize in the future if the carbonization pressure builds up.

Cheers all!
 

Attachments

  • 20210129_162120[1].jpg
    20210129_162120[1].jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 10
You won't get bottle bobs if you don't get add too much priming sugar. I use this priming sugar calculator: Homebrew Priming Sugar Calculator

I have found that most beer bottles can take between 3.5-4 volumes of carbonation. Champagne bottles can take six volumes.
 
Back
Top