We have just been given 11.5 kg of conference pears in good condition. They are about as ripe as conference pears get (i.e. hard!) and were retrieved from the tree yesterday (as opposed to windfall).
We fancy trying to make perry and/or melomel - or something else if a suitable suggestion arises - from them.
To date my wife & I have made about 15 extract beer kits and about a dozen wine kits. We have plenty of one gallon demijohns and a few five gallon fermenting bins. We have never 'craft brewed' beer from scratch, nor made a fruit wine from scratch.
We do not have a press. We are not anxious to produce a prize-winning delight, merely something interesting and pleasant to drink & share with friends.
Suggestions, please?
(In the absence of anything else, we'll leave the pears for 7 days, wash them, sanitise to kill wild yeast, bung them through the Kenwood mincer, put juice in fermenting bin, put pulp in a cotton bags in same bin, chuck in pectin enzyme stuff plus champagne yeast, ferment for a bit, rack into secondary then leave to clear for lots of weeks, then decide what to do next.)
Cross-posted to rec.crafts.winemaking and rec.crafts.brewing as you look like the most likely sources of advice.