Pear Cider For A 21st

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dylan.temple

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Made an apple cider for a mates 21st a while back and it went down a treat and now I'm in hot demand. That was as plain as simple as it got, apple juice, yeast, water, dextrose.

So this time I'm looking at doing pear and I want to spruce it up a bit, I was thinking cinimon sticks, vanilla flavouring, ldme instead of dextrose or whatever else is out there.

It's due next Saturday so I've left it a bit last minute but I'm looking at getting the ingredients and mixing them all tomorrow (can hardly call it brewing)

All suggestions would be great, and a tried and true recipe would be amazing, I've got cider yeast from craft brewer and a brewing fridge to keep it at 18-20 degrees.

Thanks for all the help in advance!

Should add alcohol content around 5-7% is what I'm looking for approx.
 
In that case, get as much pear juice as you can afford and add the same volume of cheap vodka.

If you mean the Saturday after this coming one, then you may have time to add your vanilla beans.
 
I'm chilled, I just don't think it can be done.

Otherwise pear juice and yeast is all you need unless you want some sweetness (in which case the DME addition or yeast choice - forget the dex). Presuming you are force carbing, you still have no time for conditioning. In my experience cider is best fermented cool and slow and lagered for a few weeks.

That's how it's traditionally done as well.

Look up brandon's graff and swap the apple juice for pear juice. Still think the timeframe is too restrictive.
 
force carbing indeed, i suppose i'm not looking for the most amazing cider, just the best i can manage that i can carb by next friday. is it worth putting other things aside from pear juice, water and ldme, or won't they have time to contribute any flavour?
 
Ah young people. Listening to music, getting drunk, having sex, starting bands. I shake my head. Where is the time to brew?

I presume your kegging because if your bottle conditioning thats going to take at least a week. So basically one week to ferment- use wine yeast?
 
Ah young people. Listening to music, getting drunk, having sex, starting bands.

lol what else do you want us to do with all this spare time?? haha not that i have any at the moment between studying full time and working 20 hours a week. its not giving me anytime to even contemplate putting a brew on
 
Maybe we should start a non-profit? 'Helping Young People Brew'
 
im happy to sign up to that program haha, but its not that i need help brewing its i need more time to brew.

back on topic. im with Manticle, not much chance of having it ready in time. good luck tho
 
bugga everything else
just go aldi juice, 2liter starter of EC1118 and brew as warm as you can throw 250ml of tea from 3 teabags and filter it clear should be done in 3-5 days :p

Gotta remember more things you add the longer itll take to mature and your using store juice not fresh apples that you crushed yourself. It will taste fine! Although you may want to swill it around with a copper tube :p
 
Today is Sunday, the day after what was to be "next Saturday".

How did the cider go?
 
If a 20 yr old girl can follow direction over the phone and make 3-4 juice bottle sweet cider with nothing but apple juice and wine yeast... in the bottle.

Takes about 4 days at ambient and about half a day in the fridge to chill it down and settle the yeast and is very drinkable as a sweet cider.

Granted that the drinkers were all 20ish yr olds. lol
 
Well it's in the fermenting fridge and it is flying! I've kept it at 18-20 degrees and it tarted at about 1.055 and it's already down to 1.016, but i had a taste and it seems pretty flavourless, recipe in the end was 9L apple juice, 4L pear juice, 500gm ldme, 1.5kg honey, couple of cinnimon sticks (just to seem more refined when people ask me whats in it) and topped to 22L with water. I didnt taste my last cider at any stage except once it was done and carbed up so should i be worred there is so little flavour? although to be honest i made what i thought to be a flavour packed beer at the moment as well and i just had a taste of that which seemed pretty dull, so im hoping there is some logical reason for this.

I'm thinking let it ferment out completely which hopefully will be thursday then chuck some sugar/juice in and force carb it, will gelatine be any use in clearing it? with the pear juice it is quite murky
 
For you know honey is extremely fermentable and will leave bugger all flavour at that age. In effect you are making some lightly flavoured alcoholic water?

My solution at this stage would be to find some apple concentrate and use that to raise the flavour profile. Apple and even pear juice are mainly fructose, a very fermentable sugar, so diluting with water is generally not a great idea. I've had had good results using cloudy juice when throwing honey in the mix just like you did, leaves more flavour and matures nicely.

See how you go.
 
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