Two Approaches to Perry
Two pros share how they make perry — one primarily with culinary pears and the other with perry pears. This decision results in drastically different perry, but both approaches are great options for homebrewers.
Jeremy Hall Founded Blossom Barn Cidery in southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley in 2018.
Our flagship perries that go into cans and kegs are primarily made with Rogue Valley-grown dessert Bosc and Comice pears. These are the pears that have dominated Oregon’s Rogue Valley pear industry going back to the 1880s and the locals love them. It’s the reason we decided to make perry instead of apple cider. These perries range from 100% culinary pears to 90% culinary pears co-fermented with fruit like cider apples, passion fruit, sour cherries, and strawberries. These are crowd-pleasing perries that generally appeal to people that are used to modern, semi-dry ciders.
Dessert pears lend themselves to easy-drinking perries, contributing a creamy mouthfeel that complements co-ferments with bold fruits like sour cherries and passion fruit. These perries can be drunk after just a couple months of aging in a reductive environment. We have made small batches from young perry trees we have on our orchard. These perries really showcase the depth and astringency of the perry pear and benefit from longer aging on fine lees with an occasional pump over to get some oxygen in the cider. This helps resolve all the short tannins into longer tannins that deliver a smooth yet complex perry.
We ferment all of our perries to dry, though we do backsweeten our seasonal perries with juice from local seasonal fruit like raspberries.
The juice undergoes treatment with pectinase to get the pectin out. We also add malic acid to our dessert fruit to get the pre-fermentation pH down to 3.8. After the acid and pectinase treatments, we add 25 ppm SO2, mostly to control bacteria that convert the high citric acid content of the pears to acetic acid.
We use white wine yeast to ferment our perry. We’re currently using ES181 from EnartisFerm, and have used DV10 also, but switched as we found the fermentation to be cleaner with no hydrogen sulfide (H2S) production with a longer, colder ferment. I would recommend a first timer use a commercial yeast — mostly to avoid H2S and volatile acidity (VA) that can dominate perry ferments. Or at least split the juice and use a commercial yeast on one and a wild ferment on the other.
If you have made hard apple cider but are new to perry, here are a few things to look out for:
1. Most pears benefit from cold storage to ripen. Even wild pears will ripen more consistently with a couple weeks or even a full month of cold storage. Juicing fully ripe fruit that hasn’t been cold stored can be like trying to get juice out of apple sauce. Pick the pears a little early, cold store them for at least a week, and pull them out for a day or two and then juice them.
2. Unless you’re going to keeve (a process of nutrient deprivation for a naturally sweet cider or perry), the high pectin content can create a lot of issues for fermentation, aging, and packaging. Treating the juice for pectin pre-fermentation is recommended. The citric acid content of pears is a big issue for VA, so controlling the populations of bacteria that cause VA is more important in perry than it is for apple-based cider or wine.
3. You can make a good perry out of any pears that are somewhat firm when ripe. Avoid varieties like Bartlett that are soft and creamy when ripe — they will be tough to juice.
Chris Weir leads the cidermaking team at Finnriver Farm & Cidery in Chimacum, Washington.
We grow three main varieties of perry pears in our orchard: Yellow Huffcap, Hendre Huffcap, and Romanian. We also have some amazing community members that will often bring us several thousand pounds of wild harvested seedling pears that are generally exceptionally high in acid and tannin content. Typically we produce our estate perry each year for our Orchard Series lineup. If we have an abundant perry pear year we may do an additional one or two specialty releases, such as our Keeved Single Malt Barrel Aged Perry.
Perry pears allow us to produce an assertive and bold perry without the need for fermentation adjuncts, acid additions, or added sugars. While I can certainly understand the appeal of blending in some culinary variety pears to increase volume and mellow out some of the aggressive tannins, I often find that the utilization of these varieties can result in a perry that is a bit more mellow and tame than I generally prefer. But that is just a personal preference.
We use an extended maceration process for our perry during the pressing stage. We will grind the pears into macro bins and allow it to sit for 24 hours prior to pressing. This extended maceration of the pulp allows for some controlled oxidation to occur, which helps to soften the aggressive tannins. Numbers depend on the harvest, but our juice is usually coming off the press around 3.4 pH and about 0.65 TA (titratable acidity). We sulfite between 15–30 ppm prior to primary fermentation and that is often the only addition made to the juice.
If it is an off year with low harvest yields we will typically ferment all of our perry varieties in one batch. If we have an abundant harvest I will ferment the varieties separately. This can allow for more creative freedom down the line in terms of blending for our final product. It opens up the option of utilizing different yeast strains to highlight certain characteristics of different varieties. There are a massive variety of yeasts available on the market and I enjoy experimenting with what they have to offer. Other times I utilize the natural yeast that comes in on the fruit and allow the wild ferment to do its thing. Ultimately it is a matter of creative inspiration in the moment. For a first-time perrymaker I would generally recommend pitching a cultured yeast. Wild ferments come with some risks and can be challenging to keep clean and healthy if you are unfamiliar with the process and don’t have a solid nutrient plan or temperature control.
Even if you don’t have access to traditional perry pears you can certainly ferment a unique and delicious perry at home. While using juice from entirely dessert variety pears will generally yield a lighter, less complex perry, there are many tools at the cidermaker’s disposal to help build some complexity in the final product. Using a small amount of light or untoasted oak in the primary fermentation can add fullness and complexity without coming across as an inherently oaked or aged perry. If you don’t mind some woody depth, I have used toasted Douglas fir staves to surprising success as well as toasted acacia wood. Co-ferments with other fruits are also a fantastic way to bring a little extra excitement to the table.
If you are familiar with making hard cider you should be well set to dive into the world of perry, though there are a few differences between them worth noting. Pears contain sorbitol, an unfermentable sugar, which means perry always has some residual sweetness remaining after fermentation. The level of residual sweetness can vary drastically from variety-to-variety and harvest-to-harvest.
Perry is also more challenging to clarify than apple cider and will often remain quite hazy after fermentation and aging. I personally don’t mind a hazy perry, but if you prefer a clear and bright beverage, I have had the best luck achieving clarity with repeated cold-crashing and racking.
Lastly, if you usually allow for any malolactic activity in your ciders you should bear in mind that pears generally have high levels of citric acid as opposed to apples, which predominately contain malic acid. The bacteria used for malolactic fermentation to convert malic acid into lactic acid will also convert citric acid into acetic acid, which is generally less desirable.
