Prickly Pear Mead

[homebrewer_99]

Any tricks to getting the inside red like a paper bag does for tomatoes???

Maybe they're picked early for unknowing gringos??? I sure would like this if it were red...

 

[dicsostu]

i pick em myself when they are ready but i have heard that you can use the paper bag trick on prickly pears.

EDIT: i've seen pictures on the net of yellow prickly pears, all of ours in phoenix are red so i have no experience with the yellow ones. maybe yours are a diferent strain and therefore not red?

does anyone know if freezing the juice affects the mouth feel of the finished product?

 

[user 574]

yeah they have a bunch of small hard seeds.

i hope the prickly pear mead retains its color, if not i may add a little more juice close to the end of fermentation to give it some more color. (if you have not seen the inside of a prickly pear, it has an awesome deep brilliant red color)

Alas the color will be lost and will be more of a golden color. As for the fermenting. bubbling is barely noticeable. Mine stayed in the 1st fermenter for 42 days. Second fermenter for 30. I should have racked it a third time for another 30. I had slight sediment in the bottles that make for a careful pour. I bottled it once the FG was at 1.002.

The boiling for 2 hours has something to do with the pectin (I'm no wine guy) but I'll take Charlies word for it. Actually it was a recipe from some dude in Tucson 20+ some years ago.

 

[user 574]

Any tricks to getting the inside red like a paper bag does for tomatoes???

Maybe they're picked early for unknowing gringos??? I sure would like this if it were red...

I think its a different strain too Bill. The red one's around here start green and go pink to red/maroon. No yellow during the ripening process...

 

[GinKings]

i hope the prickly pear mead retains its color, if not i may add a little more juice close to the end of fermentation to give it some more color.

As DesertBrew said, the brilliant color of the prickly pears is lost. Mine lost it's color when the fruit was boiled, not during fermentation, so adding juice after ferment wouldn't help. I believe the fruit is boiled because it's kind of slimy, so I don't think I'd eliminate the boil.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I think its a different strain too Bill. The red one's around here start green and go pink to red/maroon. No yellow during the ripening process...

Maybe...my mead is just a blah yellow... They were pretty on the outside though...

 

[dicsostu]

i boiled my pps down yesterday, it turned from that amazing color to a dull maroon. i filtered it twice, mixed in some pectic enzyme, let it sit overnight and then froze it. i have over a gallon of juice and i want to try another pp mead. how much of this juice should i use for a gallon batch?

 

[user 574]

i boiled my pps down yesterday, it turned from that amazing color to a dull maroon. i filtered it twice, mixed in some pectic enzyme, let it sit overnight and then froze it. i have over a gallon of juice and i want to try another pp mead. how much of this juice should i use for a gallon batch?

I've only made this once (plan to do another batch soon). Anyways, here's a couple other links to review.

Recipe similar to the Papizian one if you don't already have the book or a specific recipe.
http://www.weaselbreweries.com/recipes/cactus.html

My Prickly Pear Mead thread if there is any other info you can nab from this thread.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=34696&highlight=prickly+pear

As for how much juice, mine started out with 10# whole fruit, cleaned up ended at 5# so however much that is...

 

[Selene_theSilent]

Howdy,

I've been wanting to make this mead for sometime but live in the Northeast. I recently looked it up and I found that it's generally found in Arizona and areas around there but I also read that it's the only cactus that's native to *this* area as well. I also recently found some prickly pears at a local Shaw market. I picked some up to experiment with a prickly pear mead and see how it comes out. It'll be one of five meads I make in a two week period. The pears I found in the store look pretty good, mostly ripe, not bruised. They also came without the darn prickers, which is awfully convenient.

If it helps I'll let you know what I did and how it develops.

Selene

 

[Brandon O]

My prickly pear mead is about to get another 5 pounds of prickly pear fruit in it.

I used 12lbs honey with 6lbs prickly pear for the first fermentation.

 

[BBBF]

I made two, 1 gallon batches because the first fruit I bought was green inside and out. I'm not sure if it was a different type or just not ripe yet. So I decided to continue as planned with the green ones, but also do a batch of the red ones.

I don't have my notes on my, but they are 4 months old now. The green prickley pears have turned into a golden, yellow mead. Unlike everyone else, my red pears have retained a dark pinkish/purple color. I'm not sure why that is. I boiled everything for 40 minutes and I used pectic enzyme. When did you notice significant color change?

I haven't done any taste tests, so I can't comment on that.

 

[Brandon O]

the green ones are different from the red ones, atleast they can be. you can get both kinds at food city and ranch market here.

me and my wife peeled 13.5 pounds which yielded 11 pounds of peeled fruit. the color is a purple color for sure, it's about to get deeper purple.

I took a tip from olllllo and froze the fruit and defrosted it a couple of times to break down the cell walls. Then i brought the fruit to just below boiling point for about 10 mins before cooling down and putting it in the primary. Added pectic enzyme and nutrient and energizer etc.

I don't think you need to boil fruit you have to peel, should be sanitary inside right? i heated it up just in case tho, might as well be extra cautious on something that takes a year or two.

The prickly pear mead i had at this years homebrew oktoberfest was so smooth and drinkable. I mean, i could drink this stuff like beer. I am thinking it couldn't have been more than 9%, it tasted like it was about 7% but it could have just been well aged. It was kegged and lightly carbed, best mead I have ever had.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

Wow - How time changes things.

First to add some two cents, I like to chop or super highly chop the fruit, bag it, smash it, freeze it, then bomb it with a little camden tablets. But nowadays I'm just really lazy so I don't mess with with fruits.

I remember living in a house surrounded by banana trees and two lychee trees on each end of the house. I hated having to bag up 20 gallon trash bags of lychee and bringing to school, the beach parks etc and putting a sign on it. "Please take it for free".

If I knew how to homebrew at the time, I would never have made it through college.

 

[Brandon O]

second fruit addition is in and bubbling away. this stuff is gonna be good and it looks like i should net about 5.5 gallons.

I love lychees, didn't know they had them in hawaii. I used to grab a branch or two at the morning markets when I lived in taiwan and snack on them through out the day.

It would be interesting to to a mead from them.

 

[Freezeblade]

It would be interesting to to a mead from them.

Lychee has the highest concentration of sugar (by weight) of any fruit, second place is the grape (depending on what source you look at, usually these are the top two fruits though), this has lead me to reallly want lychee wine or a melomel, but I have to wait untill harvest season, when it starts to appear in the asian markets around town.

Oooops, OT

 

[Brandon O]

you can get them canned too.


So, my prickly pear mead hasn't started fermenting again. I am thinking about repitching it. Been a week with new fruit in there and nothing, I am thinking the yeast was dormant for too long....3 months or so.

 

[beerthirty]

Things I learned from my PP Mead experience.
1)PP has a high concentration of pectin. Boiling the fruit for long periods might break down the pectin but also breaks down the flavor and color. (PP has a light flavor to begin with)
2)Anytime new juice is added, like to the secondary, more pectin enzyme needs to be used (although alcoholic jello does sound appealing).
3)To remove the stickers on the fruit a pair of tongs and the flame from a gas range works quick.
4)A juicer(Juiceman) makes quick work of getting what you want without adding to the lees and reducing your mead production. Just chuck them in and juice is all you get.
5)Use a sweet mead yeast as champagne yeast lowers the gravity to the point of removing the PP sugar and flavor. If you want dry mead use less honey.
6)Use potassium sorbate when fermentation complete.

Hope these tips help anyone making this wonderful elixir.

 

[scinerd3000]

Any idea if you can use green PP fruit? I recently found large quantities for pretty cheap and i want to do 5gals of PP mead and the fruit is ripe but still green? Will it change color or will it work as is?

 

[philhead1]

I made my first pp batch about 6 months ago, started off almost hot pink then to a beautiful crimson. had a pretty vigorous fermting for 2 weeks , did all my fermentings in 3 months the bottled tried one at 4 months old and was a nice goldens color, nice but still needs time. I peeld chopped and boiled mine for 2 hours, has anyone tried the PP syrup?? thinking about trying a few gallons of that next time.

 

[BBBF]

Any idea if you can use green PP fruit? I recently found large quantities for pretty cheap and i want to do 5gals of PP mead and the fruit is ripe but still green? Will it change color or will it work as is?

I made a gallon with the purple fruit and a gallon with the green. The purple fruit has a much sweeter taste, although after letting them both ferment dry, I thought they both tasted similar at the 3 month mark. I haven't tried tasted them since, so I can't give much of an update.

But if I was going to make a new batch, I would go for the purple ones. The color is too fun.

 

[scinerd3000]

\
But if I was going to make a new batch, I would go for the purple ones. The color is too fun.

will the green ones ripen and have color after time?

 

[TerapinChef]

Just found PP fruit at the local grocery store (that's right, in MI) for .59/each. Don't think it'd be worth it to make mead (at least not more than a Gallon for fun) but I'll be trying them out for the first time tonight.

 

[Brandon O]

I get them for .89 a lb here in AZ.

 

[jdwest32]

I picked some for free here in AZ

 

[magno]

We had some friends over last week, and broke out a bottle of this mead, now over five years old. The prickly pear flavor is pronounced, but not as overpowering as it was for the first one or two years. This is a fun one to watch age, and there are still around 6 bottles left.

 

[user 574]

Very cool. I haven't opened one in I think 3 years. Mine are nearing 5 year mark come this fall. I think I have around 10 16 oz Grolsch bottles left.

Considering where I now live I may only crack one open every 1-2 years.

 

[redbaron1990]

I found they sell prickly pear syrup on amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009WMEL2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I'm curious how much of the syrup I would need per gallon, anyone have any ideas. If no one has tried it, what should it taste like prior to fermentation--Should the prickly pear flavor be very pronounced, or is it more subtle?