Pear Sludge

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Meadaroo

NewBee
Registered Member
Apr 12, 2011
45
0
0
South Africa
Hey you Guys,

I started a pear melomel about 3 weeks ago & it's fermenting nicely. However, I hve noticed a thick layer of pear sludge forming at the bottom of the carboy & I'm afraid that if i hve to rack i'm not going to get much of the golden nectar out.. here's the recipe - very basic

900g honey
3 1/2 pears (puried)
1 stick o cinnamon
-+ 12 raisins
half a teaspoon of normal bread yeast (was aimijng for a sweet mead)

Can't give ya any hydrometer readins since my one arrived in the post broken and i await another one in due time

Wht do i do with the pear sludge?
 
Hi,

My mistake, I'm using a 2L carboy which is roughly half a gallon. So after mixing the honey with a little water an adding the 3 & 1/2 puried pears, i basically filled the carboy with water to give about an inch and a half of headspace
 
I hve noticed a thick layer of pear sludge forming at the bottom of the carboy & I'm afraid that if i hve to rack i'm not going to get much of the golden nectar out.. here's the recipe - very basic


Make bigger batches. :D

I started with 8 gal with My Big Mel and ended up with just 4 1/2 gal. Could have let it drained and maybe got another 1/2 gallon.
 
'Fraid so! mmclean is right - make bigger batches ;D

Guess I cud attached cloth at the end of the siphon pipe & get a little more out of this batch.

Where I live, we don't get gallon carboys - gotta make do with wht's available to me :)
 
Well, you'll always end up with not enough after raking. I think the best way is to make more than 1 batch. Say, a 5 gallon and a 1 gallon. Or a one gallon, with a pint of extra must to add after raking.

If you top off with water to the very top, after active ferment, you can come pretty close to the right head space. May need to just add a little water.
 
Centrifuge?

But seriously, if you don't want fruit sludge, let the yeasties eat whole pieces of fruit, put chunks in a fruit bag. Making a puree is just asking the Universe for fruit sludge...
 
Can't you ask at food supply stores or something for a food-grade plastic bucket to ferment in? 2L is basically a soda bottle you can get at the grocery store... You don't even need an airlock for that -- just a balloon with 2 pinholes in them...

For some reason the restaurants in my area aren't giving up their buckets :(
 
I didn't mean asking them for the bucket... More like ask them where they get them... I don't think you want to make mead with hints of steak marinade... :)

In the JOA thread about half way through there's a discussion about this. Just a combination of alternating soaking the bucket in bleach water and baking soda water and you can get the scent out (Actually having to do this with my 2 gal bucket right now, it reeks of stale coffee from my last batch :( )
 
I've done pears without fruit bag a couple times recently, although mine were frozen and mashed, not pureed, I siphoned off what I could and then set the rest through a strainer, it doesn't catch everything but should make its own filter (if not, boil a facecloth or dish cloth and line the strainer with that) and if you give it some time to drain, you'll recover a good bit of the liquid AND should be able to pour off the clear stuff and leave the gunk that got through the seive, since it will have settled not long after going through. Just don't leave it too long or it'll start oxidizing (I had no issues with letting mine drip for half an hour to an hour into a sanitized salad bowl).