Pear Cider

[meikle]

Hi,
Have any of you crazy horses tried to make Pear Cider?
I keep passing it in the Shop & wonder!

Cheers
Colin

[Curious Brew]

Do you mean Perry?

[meikle]

Hi,
Yes I was thinking of making it the same way as TC, what other way is there?

[Hoppkins]

Pretty hard to find pear juice. I recall someone find some pear concentrate but it had a lot of pulp in and wasnt exactly pure either.

Sounds a P.I.A to make to me. May as well goto IKEA and buy it from them

[Minus The Bear]

May as well goto IKEA and buy it from them

Is it still a quid a can?

[meikle]

I take it the pear juice from the shops is too thick?

[Hoppkins]

Yeah i think it contains pulp and also other preservatives which make it tricky to work with.

Don't take my word for it though, this is just my hazy memory from a post about a year back.

[CyberPaddy66]

Years ago I made a wine using Purée'd pears in jars that I got from a market stall, it came out very strong and very tasty, wish I'd known back then about turbo stuff I'd have gotten pissed quicker

[BillJames]

My local health food shop sells a thick but completely clear concentrated pear juice. I have made this into perry with no problems.

Bill

[Minus The Bear]

My local health food shop sells a thick but completely clear concentrated pear juice. I have made this into perry with no problems.

Bill

how much does it cost?

[BillJames]

Not bought it for a while but it was about £2 for 500ml which made a gallon with a kilo of sugar. I will call in over thenext few days, get dtails and post.

Bill

[Camper]

I've been making a sort of perry using 2 litres of Sainsbury's Apple and Pear juice, and 2 litres of Lidl's Pear Pulp. I add pectin to help break up the pulp, and use Young's Cider Yeast.

After a day or two, you get a seperation between clear juice and the stringy pulp. It ferments happily, and the pulp does not seem to spoil it in any way.

The major pain, though, is filtering out the pulp. I use a muslin cloth for the coarse bits (easy enough) and then coffee filter papers for the fine stuff - this is very slow and I should try to find a better method.

Starting with 4 litres, I reckon I'm down to 3l by the time I've filtered out the pulp.

The result is a very pleasant drink, crystal clear and with a definite pear flavour to it. I used to add sugar but don't bother now as it's pretty potent as is.

The problem, apart from filtering the pulp, is the cost. From memory, I think both juices are 89 per litre. Four litres makes 3 litres of drinkable Perry at about £1.20 per litre.

I'm currently playing around with Heinz Pear Juice (from concentrate), which can be found in the baby food section of most supermarkets at around £1.45 for 750 mls. It doesn't seem to like fermentation, and is reluctant to clear. My first batch was just about drinkable, but not a patch on the Sainsbury's/Lidl version.

[BillJames]

[quote="Minus The Bear"][quote="BillJames"]My local health food shop sells a thick but completely clear concentrated pear juice. I have made this into perry with no problems.

Bill[/quote]
how much does it cost?[/quote]

Dear Minus

Gone up a bit. £3 for 360ml make 2.25 litres. Made by meridianfoods. Probably too dear to be an affordable ingredient.

Bill

[landy813]

I have today opened the first bottle of perry that i made with Heinz pure pear baby fruit juice. I made a gallon and added 100g of sugar and used high alcohol wine yeast.

It took 2 weeks to ferment and clear and i primed the bottles with 2 teaspoons of sugar, then left it for 4 weeks. 1 week warm 3 weeks outside shed.

It tastes good and its fizz is just right, its not as sweet as the Ikea one, i never took any hydrometer readings but i am feeling the effects after 2 pints so it must be strong.

I turned baby juice into alcohol, something not quite right about that.

[TC2642]

Just to resurrect this thread, I have got a few cartons of Pear juice from Lidl's, I was wondering if anyone had tried this? I'm going to stick it on top of the secondary yeast when I bottle my next TC.