Last night I made pear cider for the first time and it was a blast. It seems a little early in the season for pears, but they have started dropping all over town so we figured it was time to kick off cider season. Let me try to reconstruct the process.
My buddy Ethan (hey Ethan!) and I decided to make a double batch which would fill two 6-gallon carboy containers. To spare you the math of how many bushels yields 12 gallons of juice and how many buckets equals one bushel, we decided to pick about 9-10 buckets of fruit. Most of the fruit ended up being asian pears that had fallen from the trees at the Urban Farm, although there were some european pears in there and a few apples to boot.
Get the Gear:
We picked the cider press up at our friendly, local brew shop. It was $25 bucks to rent for about 24 hours and it was much larger than I imagined. I admire the old dude that came up with this crazy contraption – it worked like a charm.
Prep Work:
Basically, there is not much prep. The fruit took a bath when we got home to clean off all the dirt. We also looked the pears over to discard thick, woody stems. The fruit stem is okay, but we wanted to keep the woody stems and their tannins out of our juice.
Grind:
The sun had set by the time we began, but with beer in hand we started operating heavy machinery (Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily recommend this… but we sure enjoyed it). The motor was running as buckets of pears rolled down the shoot to be roughly chopped. A cheesecloth sack lined the wooden bucket underneath, where the chopped fruit fell into.
Press:
Once full, the bucket moves to the opposite end of the machine where the crank is, which is where the “pressing” part comes in. We had a large stock pot positioned at the end and took turns turning the crank to press all the delicious, organic pear juice out.
Feed the Compost:
After pressing, we were left with these little cakes of juiceless pear pulp. I peeled back the cheesecloth and discarded the used fruit into the compost bin. At the end of the night, I gave it a good stir so the fruitflies couldn’t reach exposed fruit bits.
Pour:
The juice was then funneled into the carboys, leaving a little room at the top. They were filled to about the point when the carboy begins to taper in.
Sweeten:
Taking a break from pressing, we fired up the oven to heat some juice with six pounds of honey until well blended. This sweetened the mixture and allows the yeast plenty to eat. Once blended, we set a ladle full of the mixture aside to cool and added the rest to the carboy. We did this twice, since we were filling two carboys (each carboy getting juice and six pounds of honey).
Yeast:
The ladle of juice was allowed to cool down to 98-ish degrees, at which time we added our yeast. We let the mixture sit for about 15 minutes, as instructed on our champagne yeast packet. This was then added to the carboy. Again, we did this part twice since we are using two carboys and making a double batch. We gave them a swirl to incorporate the yeast into the juice.
Plug:
The rubber stopper and fermentation lock were positioned and the carboys are now resting under my kitchen table, wrapped snugly in a blanket. This protects them from the light and ensures they stay warm – not hot, but just toasty.
Phase I: Complete.
All in all, everything took about 3 1/2 hours for two people working in the dark and drinking through the process. We ended up with two full, six gallon carboys which will sit for a couple weeks. After that time we “rack” them, which means we siphon the liquid into new carboys leaving the sediment at the bottom of the current containers.
I’m not exactly sure what happens after that. I think more sitting. Then we bottle them and add a little more fresh juice. The mixture then goes through a third fermentation process in the bottle, as the yeast eats this newly added sugar (juice). That process creates carbonation that can’t escape and therefore adds natural carbonation to our cider.
I’m pretty damn excited and think we’ll end up with possibly 100 pints of cider in a month or so. I’ll keep you posted on the next phase in two weeks. It was really a kick in the pants to operate this wooden contraption and we might just get our hands on more pears late next week and make some more. Old man winter won’t be able to keep us cold this winter!
It’s been a long time since I have brewed beer or made cider. Your post makes me want to get into it again!
That is so cool. My better half makes beer, but we’ve wanted to try our hand at cider. I will definitely show him this post! I had no idea you could rent a cider press. This opens up a world of opportunities for us!
also thank you for the cider press rental idea. bob’s homebrew supply in seattle rents for $50/day.
question: is your cider really sweet or still a little dry? that much honey seems like a lot to me. thank you.
Glad you guys liked the post! We haven’t tried the cider yet. It’s still fermenting in the kitchen, but I’ll let you all know how it tastes when we are ready for bottling.
“To spare you the math…”
I was curious, so I did some math during my recent pear pressing. 10lbs of ripe Bartletts produced about 6lbs of cider – 2800ml or about 3qt.
I’m curious how it turned out!
Mike, it turned out great! Click the “brewing” tag at the end of the post to read later posts related to the cider if you want. But the short answer is that it is mellowing nicely, is pretty dry, carbonated just fine, and I think I am halfway through it. Yum!
I’m sorry if it sounds silly, but, is it possible to make nonalcoholic pear cider? I tried googling it, but, only sites about alcoholic pear cider (or, perry, as it is calledd) have come up.
Sorry, I can’t be of help Merewyn! I wonder if your local brew shop could steer you in the right direction?
I am new to this Cider making game so excuse my english stupidity….
When you say “juice” do you mean fresh pear juice (as in from a separated batch of freshly pressed pears) or do you mean sweet juice from the supermarket/carton???
love you xxx
I mean the fresh pear juice we got from using the cider press on our pears. Happy cidering!
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Tedward: The extra sugar, regardless of what kind, will turn into alcohol if using an agressive yeast like champagne. Therefore completely dry. Add some concentrate (half thawed pear juice) and a couple table spoons of sugar to prime and bring back flavor when bottling.
Merewyn, There is a recipe for pear cider at E How
http://www.ehow.com/how_7811284_make-pear-cider-home.html
I Didnt have a press so i put them in the blender i have very little juice and a lot of pear pulp do i need to heat it or just put the pulp in the aging container i’m making about 2 gallons so how much sugar would you use?
Victor, you just want the juice – not the pulp. The pulp goes to the chickens or compost pile or bake it into muffins/bread or something. For two gallons of juice, you could heat it since it’s a small enough amount to get rid of any wild yeast strains. Let it cool. Add could add about 1-2 pounds of sugar or honey, but I would call your brew shop to check! They will be the best ones to give advice, since I’ve never made a small batch like that before. Once cool, pitch your yeast.
There is a good forum for those interested in making wine and cider….winepressUS.
I loved reading about your PERRY making adventure. Pear cider is my absolute favorite, especially if it is just a bit sweet. Actually waiting for my most recent purchased pears to finish ripening and then I will be running them thru the juicer (no press just yet) and starting some pear mead. I can’t wait for it to finish because I love to blend it with blackberry wine or mead, just depends on what I have in my wine cellar. Home winemaking–so addictive. Where else can you make wine out of jam?? You should explore that too…fun!