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Pears are ripe and falling off of our tree so I’ve been preparing to make Perry, a pear mead or more technically a melomel. It sounds like it should be very tasty but like my other meads it will take some time to mature. Apparently perry used to be very popular towards the end of the Roman Empire and also in 14th century France.
Process:
Collected pears as they became very ripe and then trimmed them of stems and bad spots. I then ran the pears through a food grinder and froze the pulp until I was ready to use it.
On the brew day I thawed the pulp and added half a gallon of water to make it a bit more fluid. Heated this up to 150 F and let it sit for 30 minutes to sterilize the fruit. I then removed it from the stove and added it to my primary bucket.
While the fruit was sterilizing on the stove, I placed my honey into a warm water bath to allow it to flow more easily. When the fruit had been added to primary I then poured in the honey and added enough water to reach a volume of just over 3 gallons. I measured the OG and it was 1.096 giving an alcohol potential of 12.6 %ABV. I added the pectic enzyme and the yeast nutrient, pitched the yeast, and sealed the bucket with a blow-off tube.
9-27-11: Put into primary. OG measured at 1.096.
10-23-11: Racked into 3 1-gallon carboys. Very cloudy even after I strained it to remove all the large bits of pulp (took about an hour to do). SG measured at 1.008 giving a strength of 12.5 %ABV.
10-16-12: Racked the 3 gallons of liquid into a 5-gallon carboy and added some Super Kleer to help settle it out. There was a surprising amount of cloudiness even after sitting for almost a year. Hopefully it will clear out in the next day or two and I will be able to bottle it.
10-18-12: Bottled into 4 wine bottles and 18 12-ounce bottles. FG measured at 1.000, giving a strength of 12.8% ABV. The Super Kleer resulted in about half an inch of sediment on the bottom of the carboy, but the liquid was still slightly hazy when bottling.