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As a distilling noob, whats the difference between pear cider and pear brandy? Friend of mine owns a local vineyard and wins awards for his pear brandy but I've never tried it.

Growing up we had 3 red delicious apple trees, a pear tree, 2 peach trees and an apricot tree. Out of all of them, the pear tree gave the most/best fruit. We also had a concord grape vine that would give ~10 pints of grape jelly every year. It was almost as big as the pear tree.
 
heada said:
As a distilling noob, whats the difference between pear cider and pear brandy? Friend of mine owns a local vineyard and wins awards for his pear brandy but I've never tried it.

Growing up we had 3 red delicious apple trees, a pear tree, 2 peach trees and an apricot tree. Out of all of them, the pear tree gave the most/best fruit. We also had a concord grape vine that would give ~10 pints of grape jelly every year. It was almost as big as the pear tree.
Click to expand...

Hopefully that's a distilling noob on the enjoyment side. There are no exceptions for distilling at home like there are for home wine and beer making.

Ferment brewed malt tea -> beer
Ferment grapes -> wine
Ferment apples -> cider (American's only call juice 'cider' because of politicking in the run up to Prohibition.)
Ferment pears -> perry (Some US producers make pear flavored apple cider that they call pear cider. A few others really make perry, but don't want to make the effort to educate the consumer.)

Distill (boil and catch the steam) beer -> whiskey
Distill wine -> brandy

Just like wine, if you don't put a fruit modifier in front of 'brandy', it implies grapes.
Perry is 4-6% abv. Can be dry or sweet. Smooth or tannic. Still or sparkling.
Pear brandy is at least 40% abv (80 proof) and can be up to 160 proof. It's not usually barrel aged, but can be. It's sometimes bottled with a pear in the bottle. It's a hard liquor, so no-to-little sugar - only the sweetness of the alcohol (If you are the genetic type that tastes ethanol as sweet. Not everyone does.) It usually looks like vodka, but has a big pear bouquet, and kind of a pear hand soap flavor. Can be more floral, it depends on how many pear skin essential oils you capture.
 
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Charles_McG said:
We call that ‘perry’. At least if it was from all pear juice.

I just started the fining of 250 gallons of Perry. Hopefully filtering this weekend or next.
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Yes, all pear juice and my first time. I plan to backsweeten for sweetness and carbonation and if this first batch of perry eventually turns out ok, will look into getting a kegging system for next year.
 
JamesS said:
Yes, all pear juice and my first time. I plan to backsweeten for sweetness and carbonation and if this first batch of perry eventually turns out ok, will look into getting a kegging system for next year.
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Tips:
Perry is usually high pH. adding 3-5 grams/L of acid blend can really help stability. And help balance backsweetening.
Pear juice is exceptionally low in YAN (Yeast Assimilable nitrogen). If you avoided H2S and DEDS, then you managed fermentation (strain selection and nutrition) well. (Or got pears from an over-fed orchard.)
Perry has from-the-fruit unfermentable sorbitol. It may leave 4-6 brix unfermented, lowering your expected abv. Also, it's sweet to some people.
If you don't make the acid adjustment, don't bother with sulfite. Above pH 4, it's ineffective.
If you don't have experience with backsweetening and stabilizing cider, don't be surprized if it referments. It's harder to prevent than in wine or beer.
Perry is prone to throwing hazes. Especially with oxygen exposure. Don't be surprized if you can't get it brilliant clear, or it develops a purple tint (calling 'pinking').
 
Last edited:
Charles_McG said:
Tips:
Perry is usually high pH. adding 3-5 grams/L of acid blend can really help stability. And help balance backsweetening.
Perry has from-the-fruit unfermentable sorbitol. It may leave 4-6 brix unfermented, lowering your expected abv. Also, it's sweet to some people.
If you don't make the acid adjustment, don't bother with sulfite. Above pH 4, it's ineffective.
If you don't have experience with backsweetening and stabilizing cider, don't be surprized if it referments. It's harder to prevent than in wine or beer.
Perry is prone to throwing hazes. Especially with oxygen exposure. Don't be surprized if you can't get it brilliant clear, or it develops a purple tint (calling 'pinking').
Click to expand...

Thanks for all that welcome knowledge! I'm hoping keeping the bottled perry in the refrigerator will at least slow down any active yeast.
 
With all this talk of perry making (I'ved brewed and I've mazered, but haven't made a perry), it makes me think that it's a shame we can't fly off the sod farm in Ft. Valley, GA anymore. When we had multi-day launches, folks would stay in Perry, GA. [grin]
 
Charles_McG said:
Pear brandy is at least 40% abv (80 proof) and can be up to 160 proof.
Click to expand...
There's a high proof product called Poire Williams which will grab you violently by the collar, yank you in close, and gently whisper "pear" in your ear.

The same experience but with a whisper of plumb can be had from a drink called slivovitz. Slivovitz is a long time family favorite. I'm sure similar drinks are made with other fruits. (I'd like to try an apricot version; apricots make everything good.)
 
jqavins said:
There's a high proof product called Poire Williams which will grab you violently by the collar, yank you in close, and gently whisper "pear" in your ear.

The same experience but with a whisper of plumb can be had from a drink called slivovitz. Slivovitz is a long time family favorite. I'm sure similar drinks are made with other fruits. (I'd like to try an apricot version; apricots make everything good.)
Click to expand...

'Williams' is the French/German name for 'Bartlett'. Poire Williams is a pear brandy from Bartlett pears.

I've made slivo. The plums (lead-free, so no 'b') developed a great aroma during fermentation that carried through into the distillate. We're aging up peach brandy right now - delicate, but very clear sun-warmed peach note.

I've had an apricot spirit from Round Barn in Michigan. It's nice, but fainter than the peach.
 
jqavins said:
What I meant is that the stuff makes you suddenly stand straight up. ;)
Faint is exactly what I've come to expect from this general class of fruit brandies.
Click to expand...

I find that most consumers expect a strong flavor to go along with the strong alcohol, but haven't considered the chemistry involved. Or have only had 'blackberry brandy' - a flavored, sugared grape brandy that's really a liqueur with a special labeling law loophole that allows it to be called brandy. That stuff might as well be candy.

Mostly, spirits are pretty faintly flavored of the original source material. Many times the aroma molecules of the fresh fruit are yeast edible - so they are gone by the end of fermentation. Or have been transformed by the yeast - alcohols to esters for instance. Hence wine doesn't taste like Welch's, nor cider like Mott's. Brandies are a boiling point fraction of what's left after fermentation, so it's really fruit dependent. And a little process dependent.

I find pear and raspberry (raspberry with modification) come through the most. Then plum and cherry (but plum is modified). Then peach. Then maybe grape. Then apple.
 
Listened to the tornado siren going off early in the AM. Saw lightning, heard thunder 3 seconds later (too d*mn close!). It's still raining.

I wish we had a tornado shelter, but with the water table as high as it is here, it's troublesome. Very, very few houses have basements, and even fewer have dry basements.
 
Some car stuff: replaced torn outer boot on drive axle, installed speed bleeders on all 4 brake calipers, bled new brake fluid into system, and adjusted parking brake engagement. Almost as fun as working on rockets!
 
Applied mahogany stain to a cherry blanket chest I'm building. I like natural cherry but the person it's going to requested "dark cherry....ya know, like that Brazilian cherry stuff" *sigh*
 
heada said:
Applied mahogany stain to a cherry blanket chest I'm building. I like natural cherry but the person it's going to requested "dark cherry....ya know, like that Brazilian cherry stuff" *sigh*
Click to expand...
:D Ha! I'm a woodworker too and once made a living doing it. I consider natural wood at its finest. I hate staining something. Seems sacriligeous.
 

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