Prickly Pear/Pear blend is thick

[M38A1]

I kicked off a batch of prickly pear/pear a couple days ago and it seems to be percolating just fine at the moment. However, my question centers on the 'thickness' of the must. It's thick. Not honey thick, but certainly not water thin.

My friend juiced through a simmer process a 5gallon plastic bucket full of prickly pears.

So far:
1-7/8 gal prickly pear/pear juice (probably 95% prickly pear extract)
Water to 3 gallons (so about 1-1/8 gallon added)
4lbs sugar (8-cups) to SG 1.080
1/8tsp tannin
1-1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
MA-33 yeast
pH: 3.5

My questions include, what's going to happen with this? Will it thin out? Should I have added more water initially to get the consistency more fluid? Can I let it continue and ferment continue to dry, add k-meta/sorbate, then add water to thin? I'm just stumped on what to do.

 

[M38A1]

Anyone?

 

[Stressbaby]

I have not made prickly pear before. However, I've made other pulpy wines. I'd leave it; the pulp may break down further. Make sure you have plenty of pectic enzyme on board.

 

[M38A1]

Alrighty..... Time to do something more with it. SG is sitting at 1.000 today. I'm going to rack it to another plastic primary and add a gallon of water to thin it - it's still not as thin as wine should be. I still see plenty of yeast action percolating, so the addition might slow that down a bit since I'll be getting the 3 gallons off the gross lees. The color is awesome, don't know about how clear it really is at the moment. I'll post up a SG after I add water. Might consider more sugar and yeast if the ABV is really low?

Can I add another 1.5 tsp of pectic enzyme at this point without fear of much but all upside to it? I think my total volume will be 4gal +/-

 

[M38A1]

I'm stumped....

I took an SG out of primary and it was 1.000. I just added 1 gallon of water (or about 33%) after racking for the first time and my SG is still 1.000. Is that normal? I would have thought the dilution of the must by a third would have reduced the SG/ABV.

Thoughts?

 

[sour_grapes]

Ummm, water has a SG of 1.000. So the weighted average of 1.000 and 1.000 is 1.000.

 

[M38A1]

Well ok then! Learned another thing today.

Thanks!

 

[sour_grapes]

To be fair, you are indeed correct that it did dilute the ABV. (It increased the V, did not change the A.)

 

[M38A1]

To be fair, you are indeed correct that it did dilute the ABV. (It increased the V, did not change the A.)

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