Homemade Pear Wine
This homemade pear wine has a pale straw-blonde color and a crisp pear aroma. It's a light and delicate white wine that pairs well with food or can be enjoyed on its own. It's simple to brew and makes a great solo or blending wine!
Equipment
- 1 3-5 gallon bucket or wide mouth fermenter
- 1 lid with airlock for gallon jar, or butter muslin & twine
- 1 3-5 gallon jug, carboy, or demijohn
- 1 lid or stopper with airlock for jug
- 1 fine mesh drawstring nylon brewing bag (optional, but makes racking & removing fruit sediment easier)
- 1 stainless or plastic spoon
- hydrometer & test jar or refractometer
- siphon tubing & racking cane or autosiphon
- no-rinse brewery cleaner & sanitizer
Ingredients
- 12 lbs fresh or frozen ripe pears
- 9 quarts water
- 12 cups sugar (84-86 oz by weight)
- 2 tbsp acid blend or citric acid
- ¾ tsp pectic enzyme
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient (Wyeast wine yeast nutrient or similar)
- 1 tsp wine tannin (use colorless oak gall tannin like FT Blanc if possible to preserve delicate color)
- 1 each KMS Campden tablet
- 1 packet wine or champagne yeast
Instructions
prep equipment & sugar
- Sanitize your primary fermenter (either a three gallon wide mouth glass jar or a 3-5 gallon food grade bucket with an airlock, or crock and muslin cover).
- Clean and sanitize all of your other equipment. Assemble all ingredients and measuring tools.
- Weigh out the sugar in a clean bowl or bucket and set aside.
- If you are using a glass fermenter, fill the fermenter with half of the water. Bring the other half of the water up to a boil in a stockpot, and let cool slightly. For a plastic or other heat-resistant container, you can heat most or all of the water.
add pears & additives
- If you are using fresh pears, wash them well, remove any damaged or spoiled fruit, and chop the pears roughly. (wash fresh pears before freezing if you are using frozen fruit).
- Add the fresh or frozen pears to a clean and sanitized nylon brewing bag. I like to add either glass fermentation weights or a sanitized small glass mason jar to help keep the bag submerged in the fermenter.
- Squeeze and crush the pears in the bag to break up the fruit and extract some of the juice. If pears are frozen, let them thaw partially before squeezing.
- Add the sugar to the fruit bag in the fermenter, pour the boiling water over, and stir.
- Tie off the bag, and use a clean long-handled spoon to press the bag down into the liquid until it is submerged (it may still float up if you haven’t added weights, this is ok.
- Add the pectic enzyme & acid blend. Stir and wait 30 minutes to an hour for the enzyme to work.
- Add the yeast nutrient and wine tannin (tannins can interfere with the action of the pectic enzyme). Stir again with your sanitized spoon.
check OG & add campden
- Check the specific gravity of the must using a hygrometer and test jar or a refractometer. Record this in your notes or label your fermenter. This is your original gravity (OG).
- This number will give you a baseline for monitoring your fermentation progress, and you can use it to calculate the alcohol content of your finished wine.
- Crush one campden tablet (KMS) over the pear wine must, stir, and cover with the lid and airlock or tightly secure a fabric cover. You want to let out CO2 but keep out fruit flies… I prefer a lid and airlock but some people like to do a more open traditional fermentation.
check OG, pitch yeast & ferment
- Wait a full 24 hours for the campden tablet to work and dissipate, then add your packet of wine yeast. If you add them together, the campden tablet will kill or deactivate the yeast, so pay attention to the timing. If you wait too long and your fermenter is not well-sealed, your wine must may spoil.
- Sprinkle the yeast over the top of the wine must (or re-hydrate it according to manufacturer’s instructions and pitch into your fermenter).
- Replace the lid and airlock. Place in a warm, dark place and check on it frequently. It should show signs of initial fermentation after 6-12 hours, with vigorous bubbling in the airlock within 48 hours.
- If it isn’t fermenting, check the temperature and move it into a warmer place. If it still doesn’t take off, you may need to repitch with a fresh packet of wine yeast.
remove fruit bag & first racking
- After about two to three weeks, or when the fermentation has greatly slowed (between 10-20 days), check the specific gravity (SG) and make note of it.
- Using a sanitized spoon or clean hands, remove the nylon bag from the fermenter, and very gently squeeze to extract most of the liquid.
- Rack (siphon from fermenter into jug) into your secondary fermentation container (probably a glass jug or carboy). Replace the airlock.
- If you didn’t use a strainer bag, instead of racking, you’ll want to gently pour your wine through a large mesh colander and then a sanitized fine filter funnel into your fermenter. You will have to stop and clear the sediment from the colander and filter funnel when it gets clogged.
check SG, rack again & bulk age
- If your pear wine has thrown a lot of sediment in the container, you can carefully rack it into a clean and sanitized fresh jug after a few weeks. This is optional, for better clarity or an extended bulk aging (between 2-6 months).
- You may want to do a third racking a few days to a week before bottling (being careful to minimize splashing so that this delicate wine doesn't oxidize) to get your wine very clear.
- If you are doing a long aging before bottling, You may want to add a trace amount of sulphites to protect the wine from oxidation and infection. Rinse the jug or carboy with sulphite solution before racking, or add a quarter to a half of a crushed campden tablet.
- When your wine is perfectly clear and the SG has not dropped in at least two weeks, rack into your clean and sanitized bottling bucket or carboy. Make sure it’s fermented all the way before bottling so that you don't make bottle bombs or end up with leaking or popping corks.
- This, plus added clarity, is a good reason to let your wines bulk age in the carboy or in gallon jugs with airlocks before bottling them. You want to make sure the wine is sparkling clear and has dropped all the sediment so that you don't have sediment in the bottle to cloud your finished wine.
bottle your pear wine
- Bottle your finished pear wine in sanitized swing top bottles or wine bottles with corks. Swing top bottles are convenient and good for short term storage. Bottles with corks are better if you plan to age your wine for more than a few months, but you'll need a corker.
- Wash and scrub your wine bottles with a bottle brush or bottle washer, rinse well with hot water, and then sanitize with a no-rinse sanitizer.
- Rinsing the bottles with a sulphite solution is good for bottling wines as it will both sanitize the bottles and add a bit of protection to the wine against oxidation at bottling, but you can use any no-rinse sanitizer that is safe for brewing (I like Star-San).
- If you have a bottling bucket with a spigot, you can rack your finished wine into the bucket for bottling, use a racking cane with a bottling valve, or rack the wine off and sediment into a clean, sanitized carboy or glass jugs and then carefully pour it into your prepared bottles. Whichever method you use, try to minimize splashing and air contact to protect your wine from oxidation.
cellar & age your pear wine
- Bottles with natural corks need to sit upright for a day or two before being turned on their sides for storage to make sure they don’t leak. Corks need time to fully expand after being compressed in the corker, then the corks should be in contact with the wine so they don't dry out. If you used synthetic corks, you can store your bottles either upright or on their sides. Swing-top bottles should be stored upright.
- Label & cellar-age your pear wine for at least one month somewhere cool and dark. It is safe to drink immediately but like most wine, it tastes much better with a bit of time in the bottle. Sample some periodically and take notes to find what you prefer!
Notes
Bottling Notes: If you want to bottle your pear wine with residual sweetness (or especially if you want to back-sweeten them with additional honey or sugar), you should first add wine stabilizer (potassium sorbate) to keep it from re-fermenting in the bottles.
You can use wine conditioner, which is a sweetener with added stabilizer (and sometimes glycerin for mouthfeel). Follow dosing directions on the stabilizer (usually a half-teaspoon of potassium sorbate per gallon of wine) and wine conditioner packaging.
A little bit of bottle fermentation can add sparkle, but a lot can push out the corks, or worse, make bottle grenades, or at the least, add sediment to your wine you worked so hard to get clear, so make sure your wine is fermented to dryness if you are not using a stabilizer when bottling!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
