Pear wine at home – a simple recipe for a difficult drink

If life gives you a lot of pears, make pear wine from them at home. And although pears cannot be called a winemaker’s dream, a drink made from them will turn out to be unusually tasty, fragrant and very original. Stock up on patience, pears and forward to new discoveries this fall.

Indeed, pears are a problematic fruit for winemaking. Dessert varieties have few tannins and acids, which greatly complicates the fermentation and clarification of the wine. Pears, oddly enough, are very different from apples, especially in chemical composition. A lot has been written about this in the article with the recipe for pear cider, perry, the recipe of which is described in this article. After reading it, it will immediately become clear to you what I am talking about here. You also need to read that article because the process of making wine from a pear is almost identical to making cider, just the result is a stronger wine (ideally 12% or more) and sweeter.

The main problem of homemade pear wine is that all pears are different. Each variety differs in density, sweetness, acidity, tannin content and fermentation ability. An experienced winemaker must take into account all these parameters, but amateurs have gathered here. Homemade drink lovers. And we will cook like amateurs, so the recipes will be common, for all varieties of pears. You will have to experiment a little and find the optimal formula for yourself and for a certain pear variety. Use the knowledge from this article to the fullest!

The only thing you should immediately understand is that a dessert pear is not 100% suitable for wine, at least in its pure form. For fermented drinks, the so-called wild game is best suited – it contains a sufficient amount of acids and tannins. But the wine from the wild game turns out to be “empty”, since there are few aromatic substances in the forest pear. That is why it is always better to use a mixture of sweet canteens and wild pears. Also, a small amount of sour apples, for example, antonovka, can be added to sweet fragrant pears.

A simple recipe for homemade pear wine for the lover

Pear wine is prepared in exactly the same way as apple wine (yes, perry is also prepared in the same way as apple wine), without any significant changes. Therefore, to begin with, read the article with a recipe for apple wines, which describes in detail the cooking technology applicable to almost all fruit and berry wines. The process of making wine from pears will differ only in the stage of preparing raw materials and further bringing the must to the optimal composition (here we will put into practice the knowledge from the article about perry). I decided to break this simple recipe into two parts: cooking technology with wild yeast and cultural (hereinafter referred to as CKD).

So, to prepare 10 liters of pear wine, we need:

Making pear wine with wild yeast

1. First of all, harvest the pears and leave them in a cool room for 2 days to 1 week to ripen, depending on the variety of pear (the wild game should definitely be left for 1-2 weeks). This is a very important point! If the pears lie down a little, then the drink will turn out empty, without a pronounced pear taste. If the pears are overexposed, then they will begin to rot from the center outward, which will definitely spoil the future wine, and it is very difficult to notice this.
2. Pears cannot be washed if the wine is made with wild yeast. Dirt can be removed with a thick cloth. Cut the fruit in half and remove all the seeds, as well as the cuttings. Cut off all rotten and damaged areas. Grind pears in any way convenient for you: a grain grinder, a meat grinder, a drill with a special nozzle, or simply extract the juice with a juicer, but then 5-10% of the cake from the total volume of the juice obtained must be returned to pure juice.

Pears, like apples, quickly oxidize and darken. Because of this, the wine can turn out dark and not very beautiful. To make your pear wine light, almost indistinguishable from white grape wines, add ascorbic acid to the must – about 10/1 teaspoon per 3 liters.

3. Leave chopped pears in a cool room, covered with gauze or a towel, overnight or for 24 hours. This is necessary for the oxidation of tannins, which, as a rule, are too abundant in a pear and they differ greatly in chemical composition from tannins in apples: they prevent fermentation and clarification of wine.
4. If a juicer was not used, that is, the pear was first crushed, the juice must be squeezed out of the resulting cake. For these purposes, a wine press is best suited, which you can assemble with your own hands (someday I’ll tell you about a couple of options). You can also use a nylon bag – the technology is described in the second recipe of this article.

Since pears are low in nutrients for yeast and we don’t feel like going to the liquor store, you can add a handful of unwashed raisins from the market to the must, which will serve as a natural source of nitrogenous food, fatty acids, vitamins and other things.

5. In the resulting juice, add pure water according to the recipe, apple juice, if it appears in the recipe, acid and part of the sugar. Don’t forget to add chopped raisins to the wort to feed the yeast. There is a lot of sugar according to the recipe, because we need to get strong wine, so it will be fractional. Break the entire amount of sugar into 3-4 equal parts and add to the wort on the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th day, dissolving it in a small amount of wort. If you have a pH test, your goal is to get 3,9-4 pH (0,6%). You can increase the acidity (lower the pH) by adding acids, lower (increase the pH) by diluting the wort with water. In the absence of a tester, be guided by your taste.

From the article on pear cider, we know that a fermented pear drink is almost always the product of double fermentation, yeast and sour milk. We also know that citric acid can stimulate lactic acid bacteria, and they can turn your drink into something terrible. Of course, you can take a chance and add citric acid (in most cases, this option will work, especially since the wine will be much stronger than cider), but it is better to find malic acid.

6. Pour the flavored juice into a fermentation container, cover it with gauze, put it in a warm one (around 21-24^оC) a dark place and wait 3-4 days until the yeast multiplies and fermentation gains momentum. Do not fill the container more than ¾ of its volume, as the wine can foam a lot. A couple of times a day, the wort needs to be stirred so that it is saturated with oxygen and does not turn sour.
7. When fermentation gains strength (foam will collect from above, a sour smell of fermentation will appear), a water seal must be installed on the fermentation tank (in extreme cases, pull on a rubber glove with a hole in one of the fingers). Wine needs to provide a constant temperature in the region of 18-24^оC. Don’t forget to add sugar.
8. Fermentation with wild yeast lasts about 4-6 weeks. Signs of the end of fermentation: the water seal will stop bubbling, the glove will deflate, sediment will appear at the bottom, the wine will be bitter-sour, with a subtle sweetness (pears contain sorbitol, non-fermentable sugars). Using a silicone hose, drain the wine from the sediment into a clean, dry container, install a water seal and leave it for clarification and maturation in a cool room (10-12^оFROM).

If the wine suddenly stops fermenting, does not ferment at all, or ferments poorly, read this article carefully. It describes the main causes of “stuck” fermentation, as well as ways to eliminate these causes. Also there is a very well described scheme for the preparation of cultural yeast and their “integration” with the wort.

9. Pear wine clarifies poorly, so after 2-3 months of aging, if progress is not visible, it can be pasted over according to the instructions from this article. Every month, do not forget to drain it from the sediment. A minimum of 3-6 months should be allocated for aging, after which the wine can be sweetened to taste or not sweetened at all and bottled. Before bottling, after adding sugar, I recommend holding it under a water seal to make sure that fermentation is complete. Bottles should be stored in a cool place.

Making homemade pear wine with CKD

The process of making homemade pear wine according to this recipe does not differ much from the previous technology. For our purposes, any wine yeast for white wines will do, but yeast for champagne has proven itself best. Before pure yeast culture is added, the wort should be sterilized to kill unwanted microorganisms. This can be done in two ways: by heat treatment or by adding sulfur (SO2).

1. After crushing the pears and oxidizing the tannins, they must be poured with boiling water (the amount of water is taken from the table). Wait for the wort to cool down, squeeze out the juice, add the rest of the ingredients and add the CKD. A more radical way is pasteurization. To do this, pure pear juice is boiled over low heat to half the volume, cooled and fermented with cultural yeast without any additives.
2. After obtaining pure pear juice, 2 crushed Campden tablets (potassium metabisulphite) should be added to our 10 liters of wort. Now these are sold in any wine shop (including shops for brewers). Wait the prescribed 24 hours for the SO2 to evaporate (of course, the container must be left open under the gauze) and add the CKD.

After adding the CKD, we act according to the scheme described above. The only thing is that cultural yeasts ferment the must much faster and the wine can ferment in 2-3 weeks, but this depends on many factors, especially the temperature of fermentation (some CKD work better at lower temperatures, read the instructions on the package).

Homemade pear wine with CKD for the pros

Now let’s imagine that you are a lover of homemade alcoholic beverages, but at the same time you are a professional in their preparation, in particular wines. You are not afraid to use sulfites, nutritional supplements, tannins, pectins and spare no expense for good yeast. This is a universal recipe that is suitable for dense sweet pears in their pure form. Also in the recipe, using the previous one, you can include a certain amount of wild game or sour apples, but with a decrease in added acids and tannins.

To prepare approximately 19 liters of wine:

• about 15 kg of ripe pears (you need to get 20 liters of must)
• 350-400 ml white grape juice or 1 kg raisins
• 4 kg of sugar
• 14 liters of water
• 0,6 teaspoon ascorbic acid
• 7,5 teaspoons malic or citric acid
• 2,5 teaspoons pectin enzyme
• 0,6 teaspoon grape tannin
• 10 Campden tablets or 4,4 g potassium metabisulphite (0,5 tsp)
• 2,5 teaspoons potassium sorbate
• 6 teaspoons yeast nutrients
• 1 sachet white wine or champagne yeast

Necessary equipment:

• primary fermenter with a volume of 25-30 l (for example, a bucket for beer)
• secondary fermenter with a volume of 19-20 l
• water seals
• silicone hose for pouring wine
• wine bottles with corks

Wine preparation:

1. Wash pears, cut in half and remove all seeds. Then cut into small slices and place in a nylon or gauze bag in which you can boil the fruit.
2. Tie the bag well and place in the primary fermenter. Crush the pears with any heavy object or potato masher.

3. Boil water and dissolve all the sugar in it. Pour boiling water over the pears so that the water covers the bag of fruits completely. Wait 1 hour.
4. Add crushed ascorbic acid, 5 crushed Campden tablets, acid, tannins, yeast nutrients to the fermenter. Cover the fermenter with gauze.
5. Wait 12 hours and add pectin enzyme. After another 12 hours, squeeze the juice for measurements with a hydrometer. Our task is to get the share in the region of 19-21 ^оBx (according to a refractometer or hydrometer), which will allow you to get the desired 11-12% alcohol.
6. Return the juice to the fermenter and add the pre-prepared yeast. Add grape juice or chopped raisins. Pull gauze over the top of the fermenter. A couple of times a day, the wort must be stirred by moving the bag.
7. After 5-7 days, rapid fermentation will begin to subside. You need to get a bag of pears and let it drain over the fermenter for 15-20 minutes. Pears should not be squeezed, otherwise it will be very difficult to clarify the wine later.

8. Measure the acidity of the wort and bring it to 3,9-4 pH (0,6%). You can taste the juice and add acidity and tannins (tartness) to taste.
9. Hold the wort in the primary fermenter for another 24 hours, then pour the wort into a secondary fermenter of less volume, which should be filled almost to the very neck, leaving about 3 cm to the top. Install a water seal.
10. Provide wine a constant temperature in the range of 18-24^оC. After the end of fermentation, after about three weeks, drain the wine from the sediment and reinstall the water seal. Move the fermenter to a cool place.
11. Every two months, drain the wine from the sediment. When the precipitate stops falling, wait another 30 days to make sure that the precipitate does not fall. If there is even the slightest hint of sediment, wait another 30 days.

12. When the wine is completely clear and there is no sediment left, add 2,5 teaspoons of potassium sorbate and 5 crushed Campden tablets.
13. Drain 250 ml of wine and dissolve 550-600 g of fructose or honey in it. Return the wine to the fermenter and install a water seal. Then wait another 30 days.
14. If there are no signs of fermentation, bottle the wine and let it rest for 6-12 months.

Only after 1,5-2 years you will get a good drink. Surely, your efforts will be rewarded a hundredfold. The wine according to this recipe is fragrant, with a bright pear taste, moderately sweet and tart, and, what is important, completely transparent. Such a drink can compete not only with apple wines, which are often ranked above pear wines, but even with good wine made from white grapes. All in your hands!