Can I wild ferment pears?

[jen]

Does anyone have experience of wild fermenting pears?All the info I can find talks about adding champagne yeast.We make a fair bit of wild fermented wine .Are we likely to have the right yeasts already here.We live in the south of spain where everybody has their own grapes that they make wine from each year,so I imagine we have a lot of yeasts floating around!Nobody seems to make anything with the pears.

[Tim Hall]

Hi Jen,

I'm guessing by now you've already eaten those pears, but I thought it was important that SOMEBODY made a reply here. (c'mon guys, you know how to use a keyboard!) Surely whatever yeasts you have in the area the "right" yeasts unless you're really trying to get some very specific quality out of a wine/cider/perry that you'll only get out of a pedigreed yeast. If it's got sugar in it, any yeast will act on it.

I've not made perry myself, so I can't tell you if there's anything peculiar to it vs. cider or wine. If you haven't already, I'd suggest looking into recipes for making perry, but I imagine the process is very similar to cider. When in doubt just experiment with a small batch. If it doesn't make wine, use it as a marinade or a stir-fry glaze.

[jen]

Thanks for that.....What I ended up doing was using half and half peach and pear,chopping into chunks ,adding boiling water enough to cover and a couple of kilos of sugar for good measure....Its ticking along nicely.It frothed a lot to start with but has settled down now.I am very glad I resisted the tempation to add a commercial yeast.This week I have made bread,wine and cheese without going near a supermarket! That cannt be bad!

[jen]

I´m answering my own question here ...Yes you can !A little cloudy but delicious!30 bottles of nectar!We hope to keep enough to see what it is like aged in the bottle.----could be dfficult getting past christmas!

[JDEJ]

Hi there,
I'm just adding to the previous answer here. Yes you can wild ferment just about anything! I've done limes, sugar beets, linden flowers, tomatoes, just to name some of the oddities. I think though that wild yeasts yield a lower alcohol so you might not be able to age it indefinitely. So don't feel bad if it's all gone already.
Glad yours worked out.