Eating Pear Brandy Ingredients
50 pounds (1.75 buckets) of ripe eating pears
4 pounds raw cane sugar
4 oz feed grade molasses
1 spoon each: Gypsum & Citric Acid
4 spoons Fermax
1 multivitamin
1 B-complex
1/2 spoon Epsom Salts
In big pot, add 1.5G water, gypsum, citric acid, epsom salts, raw cane sugar, and feed grade molasses. Heat up until dissolved. Let cool. Add Fermax, multivitamin, and B-complex.
Wash and cut pears. Add to blender with a cup of sugar water. Blend like a smoothie, (this aerates, so no extra aeration needed) then dump into fermenter up to 7G mark. This will take 1.75 buckets of fruit (6.04# natural sugar). Add a half gallon of tap water to thin it out a little.
Make a yeast starter with 10g EC1118 and 15g RS-DADY. Use a little bit of the fruit wash and a quart of water @ 95F. Pitch starter and a couple handfuls of oyster shells. Stir it in good. Put the cover on loosely. This starts right up
Gently push the cap down for the first three days. It should finish in 5 days. Strip it out as soon as the cap drops to minimize risk of vinegar infection.
Squeeze through paint bag, slow strip & slower spirit. Most flavor will come in early tails. I collected everything from late heads to early tails.
6.04+4=10.04 pounds of sugar
10.04/7.5=1.3387 pounds per gallon
9.4% potential abv @ SG 1.062 & 7.5G