How to make wine from homemade pears

At least one pear tree is sure to grow and bear fruit abundantly in each area. Sweet juicy fruits refresh well, contain many vitamins, iron, potassium, zinc, copper. Winter varieties are usually rich in flavor and diversify our diet when fruit prices in stores become obscenely high.

Summer ones simply disappear – unfortunately, pears are rarely processed into juice or other preparations. It’s a pity, of course, and also wasteful. Meanwhile, from these fruits you can make a lot of delicious supplies, and even alcoholic drinks. Today we will offer you a simple recipe for homemade pear wine.

Pear as a raw material for wine

Pear is not the most suitable material for the production of wine. Alcoholic drinks from it can turn out sweet, fragrant and strong, or they can go bad during cooking or come out cloudy and musty. This is due to the fact that varieties have different density and ability to ferment, contain sugar, acid and tannins in different quantities.

Of course, experienced winemakers take all this into account and do not make mistakes, but this or other similar articles are not intended for them. You will have to trial and error to find the best recipe for homemade wine from pears growing in the backyard. We will tell you what you need to pay attention to, how to avoid the most common mistakes.

Oddly enough, the best raw material for pear wine at home would be wild game – it contains enough acid and tannins. But the drink will turn out to be “flat”, almost devoid of aroma. Dessert varieties in their pure form are absolutely not suitable for the production of pear wine. They need to be mixed with wild or sour apples or acid added.

The subtleties of making wine

In order for the wine to turn out tasty and have a delicate aroma, several points must be taken into account during its production. If you ignore them, you will end up with a cloudy, tasteless alcoholic drink, or it will go bad at the fermentation stage.

• The acidity of dessert pears is about 2 times lower than that of apples or grapes, and in the production of wine it should be from 6 to 15 g per liter. Deviation from the norm makes fermentation impossible or very weak. Do not forget that even the sweetest pears still contain acid. For example, the Naryadnaya Efimova variety includes about 0,13% of it, and Noyabrskaya – 0,9%.
• The sugar content of most varieties is low. They seem sweet only because of the low acidity. It is impossible to make wine from pears without adding sugar.
• Moonshine can only be expelled from overripe fruits – they are absolutely not suitable for the production of light alcoholic beverages.

  

• Tannins, found in abundance in some varieties of pears, make the wine cloudy.
• Water must be added to the must. From 10 kg of even the most juicy pears, you can get no more than 4 liters of juice.
• Before making pear wine, think about what kind of starter you will use (and you will definitely need it). The usual one, the method of preparation of which is described in the article Grape wine at home: a simple recipe will not add flavor to an already “flat” drink. You can prepare a starter in the same way as a grape starter, using raspberries, strawberries or the sediment left after the production of wine from blackcurrant, sea buckthorn.
• The flesh of the pear darkens quickly. In order not to get a putrid-colored drink at the exit, immediately after chopping the fruit into 10 liters of must, add 1/3 teaspoon of ascorbic acid.
• Tannin, contained in large quantities in some varieties of pears, differs from apple. It does not contribute to the clarification of the wine, but makes it cloudy and tart. To reduce the content of this substance, chopped pears are left in a wide open dish for 1-2 days before adding sugar and water. During this time, most of the tannins under the influence of oxygen will be oxidized.

Raw materials and containers for wine

It is unlikely that you will make wine from pears in barrels. Before use, glass bottles are washed with hot soda solution and rinsed well. Banks with a volume of 3-5 liters can be sterilized.

Pears for wine production must be collected at the stage of technical ripeness (when the seeds have just begun to color), spread out in a thin layer in a cool room and left for 2-7 days. The game should ripen 1-2 weeks. If the fruits lie down a little, the drink will be devoid of aroma.

Pears should not be washed – this way you will destroy the “wild” yeast, which is already scarce on the surface of this fruit. It is also not necessary to wipe them with a cloth – the fruits of technical ripeness are torn from a tree, and not collected on the ground.

Pear wine

It is easier for inexperienced winemakers to make dessert wine from pears than dry wine. This is due to the fact that a lot of water and sugar will be added to the wort. We will give a few simple recipes that should serve as your guiding thread in making wine, because there are so many varieties of this wonderful fruit.

Dessert wines

We will assume that your pears are moderately sweet, juicy, and have a pleasant aroma.

You will need:

• dessert pears – 9 kg;
• sugar – 3 kg;
• malic acid – 25 g;
• sourdough – 3% of the must volume;
• water – 4 l.

We gave an average amount of additives, since dessert pears contain varying amounts of acid and sugar.

After the pears lie down for the prescribed time, cut them into 4 parts and remove the core. Puree the fruits, add ascorbic acid (1/3 teaspoon per 10 liters), stir and let stand in an open container for 24 to 48 hours to oxidize the tannins.

Add water, 1/4 sugar, starter and acid to the wort. Mix well, cover with a clean cloth and leave in a warm (20-26 degrees) place. With the access of oxygen, fermentation will begin in about 1-2 days. If this does not happen, try the wort, if it is sweet to cloying – add a little water, sour – sugar.

After 3-4 days of active fermentation, strain the pulp, trying not to disturb the sediment, pour into a glass bottle, filling it no more than 3/4. Install a water seal or put on a rubber glove pierced in one finger. Store the wine for fermentation at 18-24 degrees, protecting the bottles from direct sunlight.

Sugar is added in parts, after dissolving it with a small amount of wort. The first time we added it before the start of fermentation, the second – after straining the pulp when pouring the wine into a glass container. Then sugar is added after 3-4 days, after tasting the wort.

After about a month and a half, when the water seal stops releasing carbon dioxide bubbles or the glove falls off, drain the pear wine from the sediment, bottle it and take it to a cool place (10-12 degrees) for maturation. It will be sour-bitter and cloudy.

First, every two weeks, and then less often, remove the cooked wine from the sediment, pouring it into a clean dish. Full maturation will take 3 to 6 months.

Before sealing wine bottles, you can add sugar, honey or alcohol. To get a light drink, it is left as is, syrup is poured into the semi-sweet one, and alcohol is added to increase the strength.

Store bottles horizontally, it is desirable that the temperature does not exceed 12 degrees.

Wine from dessert varieties and wild game

Although this recipe is simple, pear wine at home will turn out very tasty.

Take:

• dessert pears – 6 kg;
• wild pears – 2 kg;
• sugar – 3 kg;
• malic acid – 20 g;
• sourdough – 2% of the must volume;
• water – 4,5 l.

This wine is prepared in exactly the same way as described in the previous recipe, just mashed wild game is added to the must.

It must be remembered that wild pears must be picked at the stage of technical maturity and lie down for 1-2 weeks.

The wine is expected to be light, sweet and aromatic.

Pear-apple wine

Homemade wine made from pears and sour apples is the easiest to make. In addition, it does not require the addition of acid and is easier to lighten. Excellent when making wine with pears, apples of the Antonovka or Simirenko varieties are combined.

You will need:

• dessert pears – 5 kg;
• sour apples – 3 kg;
• sugar – 3 kg;
• sourdough – 2-3% of the must volume;
• water – 4 l.

Unwashed sour apples cut into 4 pieces and remove the seeds. Grind them together with pears in a puree. Add ascorbic acid.

Wine from apples and pears is prepared in the same way as described in the first recipe. Remember to taste the wort at all stages of preparation, so that if necessary, add sugar or water in time.

Lighting fault

Clarification of wine is called fining. Especially cloudy is a drink made from pears alone. Usually it turns out to be so unattractive that it is a shame to put the wine on the table.

To remedy the situation, special substances are added to alcohol that bind unwanted microparticles, which is why they gather in flakes and fall to the bottom of the container as a precipitate. Taping does not affect the taste of the drink, it only makes it transparent and may slightly extend the shelf life. For clarification of wine use:

• gelatin;
• isinglass;
• egg white;
• casein (milk);
• bentonite (white purified clay);
• tannin.

For gluing alcoholic beverages from pears, gelatin is most often used. It is consumed approximately 0,5-2 g per 10 liters. Gelatin is soaked with water 1:1 for a period of several hours to a day. Then pour the same volume of boiling water and stir until the lumps disappear. The wine in the bottle is swirled with a funnel and gelatin is poured in a thin stream. The container is shaken, corked and left to settle in the cold for 2-3 weeks. Then removed from the sediment, bottled, sealed.

Before proceeding with pasting, pour a little wine into small identical bottles, dissolve different amounts of gelatin in it. After 3-4 days it will be clear which result is the best.

Conclusion

Let the preparation of wine from pears is not the easiest process. But you can get a wonderful drink that you can hardly buy in a store. In addition, you will save the harvest of early and medium varieties, because only late pears are stored for a long time.