Recent content by spyder89

If you are going to freeze them then I don't think you have to wait for them to ripen. Bite into one and see if the flavor is there. I froze an unripened one and when it thawed it was so soft I could squeeze the juice by hand. I tried to let my pears ripen off the tree last year and after two...

I wouldn't peel them. You want some of the tannins from the skin. I'm not sure that I would press with the stems and seeds though because pear is a pretty mild flavor and too much bitterness from the seeds and stems may overpower the pear flavor. I quartered mine this year discarding the cores...

I've been told by many people that freezing them works great. I did freeze overnight and it came out solid as ice but when it thawed it was soft as hell and super juicy. Very easy to extract the juice at that point. When I made my wine if I had room in the freezer for 40+ pounds of pears I would...

I've used Champagne yeast before and it works nicely. This year I am trying EC-1118. The guys at the Homebrew store in my area have had good luck with it for pear wine and many other sites confirm the same. Since the pear flavor is on the weak side I would suggest keeping the SG between 1.080 -...

Thank you very much for all the info. Next time around with the pear wine I will press the pears and rack the juice then use just the juice without the water. For this time I will have to resort to f-pacs thanks to Turock.

Best to start over with this new batch? Tasted the new batch last night and it is pretty weak. I just dumped the yeast starter solution is last night too.

Since I'm still a novice please break down your process of starting a pear wine. Ripe or unripened fruit? If I tried to crush the pears I used I would have to hit them with a baseball bat as hard as I could. I don't have enough room in my freezer for 40# of pears either.

I love your reply. When I say I've done this recipe x6 I mean that I have multiplied it times 6. I used approximately 40# of pears in both batches of pear wine that I have going. One batch(the weak flavored one) is clearing with Super Kleer right now and the other I just started. The weak...

Turock, What is an f-pac? You mean flavor pack right? What should be in it and what size do you think it should be for addition to a 6 gallon batch? Thank you btw for all your help.

Turock, would fresh pear juice be a good option to bulk up the flavor? I have a farm near by that sells fresh fruit juices for wine making. You might be asking yourself why I didn't use their juice in the first place to make the wine and the reason is cost(about $65 for 5 gallons of pear juice)...

Turock, I am doing another batch this year. Unfortunately I started it a few days ago and I am following this recipe again. :slp What I am doing differently this year is I have split the batch into two buckets instead of one. Last year I didn't have enough space in one bucket because the fruit...

I did the recipe x6 for most of the ingredients. This was my first wine making experience and I followed the recipe really closely. I even wrote Jack Keller on his blog asking him what to do when making a larger batch while following his recipe. The approximate amount of pears I used was between...

As per suggestion of staff from the Homebrew store in my neighborhood I went with Super Kleer. I dropped it in last night and will hopefully see some results tonight. As for the ph and TA I will see if I can get some readings tonight. I know the ph was around 3.4 last time I racked it which was...

Anyone have suggestions on how to liven up a wine that is about to be bottled? Also it isn't exactly clear yet and it's almost at the year mark. What do I do to get it to clear? What I have is a 6 gallon batch of Pear wine from bartlett pears. I followed this recipe x6 for most everything on...

I only use buckets for my fruit wines. I use glass carboys for grape wines. I used a bucket to make a white grape wine last year and it left a funny plastic taste in the wine even though I switched to a glass carboy after the violent fermentation.