Pear wine has a wonderful sweet aroma associated with ripe and juicy pear fruits. Making an alcoholic drink at home is easy, you just need to properly prepare the ingredients. The ingredient composition is small, the preparation technology is standard, as for other fruit homemade wines. Additional ingredients can be used to improve the taste.
Specifics of making wine from pears
The only difficulty in the cooking process is the problematic extraction of juice from the pear pulp. Before starting the process, it is necessary to prepare a bottle or other container in which fermentation will take place. It is advisable to take glass containers rather than plastic ones, pour boiling water or hot steam over them, and dry them.
The acidity level of wine must is 8-15 g/l. Pear fruits do not contain as much acid. And after adding the sweetener, the acidity of the pear must becomes almost zero. The result is a bland, quickly spoiling wine.
To normalize acidity, you have to include lemon juice in the pear must. To determine the acid concentration, a pH meter is usually used, but not all housewives have one.
In the absence of a device, you have to acidify, focusing on the taste: the sweeter the pear variety, the more acid is required.
Selection and preparation of raw materials
You can take sweet garden pears for cooking, but experienced housewives advise taking wild fruits. The pulp of wild fruits contains sufficient amounts of tannins and acids to make high-quality wine. However, wine made from wild pears tastes bland, since the pulp of wild fruits is not aromatic. Therefore, the best option is to combine wild and garden pears.
The composition includes raisins or grapes. These ingredients are needed in case there is not enough yeast on the surface of the pear fruit to begin the fermentation process.
Prepared pears are not washed, but wiped with a dry, clean cloth. The fruits are cut into two parts. Cut out the middle with the bones. The pulp is carefully examined, areas with traces of rot and mold are discarded.
How to make pear wine at home
Making pear wine with your own hands is not difficult. Based on the classic recipe, many original cooking options have been created. The production scheme is always the same, the recipes differ only in the ingredient composition.
Simple recipe
For a classic recipe for making wine, take:
- 10 kg of fruits;
- 5 kg granulated sugar;
- 15 liters of water;
- 100 g raisins (no need to wash) or mashed grapes;
- from 30 to 100 g of citric acid (the exact amount depends on the sweetness of the pear variety).
Step-by-step recipe for making wine:
- Pear pulp is crushed in any way to a puree state.
- In a wide bowl, fill the pear mass with water and add 3 kg of granulated sugar. Add citric acid, raisins or grapes. Stir until the sugar grains dissolve. Cover the neck of the dish with gauze to prevent foreign particles from getting inside.
- The wort is placed for 2-3 days in a shaded place with a temperature of 18 to 25 °C. Every 12 hours, stir the liquid with a wooden spoon to evenly distribute the pear mass. About a day after preparation, the wort will begin to foam and hiss - this is a sign of the beginning of fermentation.
- The infused wort is filtered through cheesecloth or a fine-mesh sieve. The resulting liquid will be clear or slightly cloudy—both are normal.
- The liquid is poured into a fermentation container. Leave approximately 25% empty volume for foam to form and gases to escape. A water seal is installed (at home, they usually take a medical glove and pierce a hole in one of the fingers).
- The future wine is placed for 25-55 days in a shaded place with a temperature of 20-25 °C.
- After 5 days, remove the glove, pour 0.5 liters of liquid into another container, add 1 kg of sugar, stir. The resulting syrup is poured into the wort, and the water seal is installed again.
- After another 5 days, add the remaining amount of sugar using the same method.
- A deflated glove, lack of bubbles in the water seal, and the appearance of sediment at the bottom are signs of completion of fermentation. Young wine is poured into another container using a tube so that the sediment remains at the bottom.
- If desired, the wine is sweetened and vodka is added (up to 15% of the volume) to make the drink stronger. The container is hermetically sealed.
- The wine is left for 4-6 months in a shaded place at a temperature of 5-15 °C for ripening. The precipitate that appears is filtered every 15-20 days. If the wine has been additionally sweetened, then it is advisable to install a water seal for the first 10 days.
Option with apples
Sweet wine with a rich aroma is easy to make by combining pears and apples. For 5 liters of water prepare:
- 5 kg pear pulp;
- 2.5 liters of juice squeezed from apples;
- a glass of wine starter;
- 1.5 kg sweetener;
- 10 g acid.
The pear mass is mixed with apple juice and then prepared according to the classic recipe. You need less sugar because apples add sweetness.
With plums
When combining pears and plums, you get a wine with a rich, tart aroma.
Ingredients for 4 liters of water:
- 4 kg of pears;
- the same amount of plums;
- 3 kg sugar.
Before cooking, the plums are pitted and combined with pear pulp into a homogeneous mass.
Sugarless
Pear wine requires a sweetener. Otherwise, fermentation will be weak or not begin at all. But instead of sugar, you can use natural honey.
From pear juice
If there are no fruits, then it turns out quite good wine from purchased pear juice. But the composition of the drink must be natural, without dyes or preservatives.
To prepare 5 liters of water you need:
- 7 liters of juice;
- 150 g raisins;
- half a kilogram of sweetener.
From pear pulp
The deposited pulp is not thrown away; wine is also made from it.
For 10 liters of water prepare:
- 8 kg pear pulp;
- 4 kg sweetener;
- 100 g grapes.
With lemon and yeast
Instead of acid, you can use fresh squeezed lemon juice as an acidulant.
Composition for 5 liters of water:
- 5 kg of fruit pulp;
- 50 g yeast additive;
- half a liter of lemon juice;
- 3 kg sugar.
The fruits are washed before cooking because yeast is used.
With honey and yeast
For such a sweet version of wine, prepare the following for 5 liters of water:
- 5 kg of sugary fruits;
- 3 kg of natural honey;
- 5 g yeast;
- 20 g acid.
From unripe pears
Green pears, whose pulp is saturated with acids, produce truly high-quality and pleasant-tasting wine. Since unripe fruits are unsweetened, for normal fermentation to occur, a higher concentration of sweetener must be added to the wort.
Unripe fruits release juice better than ripe and fleshy ones, so the resulting wine has a deep taste and rich aroma.
For 8 liters of water prepare:
- 5 kg of fruit pulp;
- 100 g dried grapes;
- 3 kg sweetener.
From dried pears
To make pear wine, first compote is prepared from dried fruits. The drink is brewed concentrated to produce a wine with a deep taste. Dried apricots, prunes and other dried fruits are added to the compote.
Based on the prepared compote, wine is made according to the classic recipe.
From pear jam
For a liter of water you need:
- 1 kg pear dessert;
- sweetener;
- 100 g raisins.
Sweeten to taste.If the jam is sickly sweet, then granulated sugar is not used at all.
Storage rules
The strength of the resulting pear wine is about 12%. Shelf life – 3 years.
Keep wine in a cellar or refrigerator at temperatures up to +10 °C and air humidity of about 75%. Glass bottles are used to store the drink. Plastic containers can release toxins or spoil the taste of the product.
The wine should not be shaken frequently, otherwise it will spoil.
