pear wine help

This question has probably been asked a thousand times. I'm planning on a pear wine soon and as I don't have a lot of equipment am going to try a fermentation extraction as described on J Keller's great site.

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Plan is to use a blender to macerate the fruit then pour over water and add sulphate and sugar. 3 - 4 hours after that add anti-pectin enzyme and finally yeast, nutrient, acids etc. 24 hours or so later.

This is my first time using such a method, and I'm wondering how long I should wait before transfering to the secondary (and whats the best way)? I don't want to lose flavour by transfering early.

Reply to
alien
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Using a blender on pears raises one major concern. If you break the seeds, you will regret doing it that way. I chop the pears because if I inadvertently cut a seed I can see it right away and remove the cut parts. You can, of course, halve them lengthways and de-seed them first. I have done this. All it takes is time. Then drop the halves in the blender and puree the pears, skins included.

BTW, use sulphite, not sulphate. Huge difference. Use it early to reduce browning of the fruit. Ascorbic acid will help with this too, but be conservative.

An advantage of chopping fairly fine as opposed to puree is that chopped pears can be contained in nylon straing bags while pureed pears cannot. When transferring from primary, the bag lifts out cleanly and drip-drains quickly -- do not squeeze or you will suffer a clarity problem. If finely chopped, you get excellent flavor extraction during vigorous fermentation. Remove the pulp when s.g. is between 1.020 and 1.010.

If you use a yeast that likes the bottom, stir the wine, wait no more than a half hour, and rack into secondary. You can also stir and simply pour the wine into secondary through a funnel. Worry about racking off the lees later, when fermentation is finished. If the wine is still very cloudy and the yeast is well suspended, simply rack without stirring.

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

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Reply to
Jack Keller

Thanks for the advice, will get things started on Monday. I meant sulphite, I always get that wrong ;)

Reply to
alien

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