Wilko's pear cider.

[Clint Eastwood]

It claims to be a 5% ABV kit with the addition of 1.5 kilo's of brewing sugar.
The ingredients are quite interesting for a pear cider.
Concentrated apple juice,Barley malt extract and "natural flavouring".
The supplied yeast is: X TZB. Which after a bit of research turns out to be a packet of the old Edme English ale strain
supplied by Muntons.
Looking at the above ingredients I thought it was strange for a pear cider that doesn't contain any pear.
I started this kit 2 weeks ago and kegged it today as fermentation had stopped 4 days ago.
It stuck at 1009 for those 4 days.
The smell coming from the airlock was addictive. :whistle:
It had started to clear already but still has yeast in suspension but I require the FM to build up my supplies of healthy drinking hence the decision to keg now.
I had a quick taste of the cider in my hydrometer jar and was expecting a vile bitter young tasting ale-like substance.
I was quite surprised by the fact you could almost drink it now.
It has a lovely aroma and a very sweet taste to it, so much so that I couldn't taste much of the yeast at all.
It obviously has a bit more body than traditional cider because of the Malt in the kit but I was pleasantly surprised.
This is supposed to be ready to drink after three weeks like an ale kit. :rofl:
I would have thought the pear flavour is so dominant it would be difficult for anything much to go wrong with this kit.
I'll post back in a week after testing and see if it does need much more conditioning, which they normally do.

 

[Stu]

My additional entry for this brew to be filled out in the next week or two - I felt ready for bottling last week after 2 weeks FV, 2 weeks racked, but it's far too murky for my tastes so I've added a pile of Pectolase to see if I can clear it at least a little.

It has been 5 days now so I'll probably bottle tomorrow.

Seeing similar results to Tony above - I can't get mine below 1006 (I'm glad it's not me! I even gave it a good stir halfway through just in case)

Firstly, I followed ScottM's instructions here and would highly recommend.

Rather than 1.5kg of sugar, I used 1kg of Brewing Sugar (it was free) plus 300g of Granulated sugar.
Now you may think this is rather short, but I added 3 litres of apple juice to make up the wort so that should add more than enough sugar.

Nothing else to add as Tony has said it all. I'll let you know once I've bottled it. I'm toying with something to make a few bottles a little toffee flavoured for a trial.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

I tasted mine today from a hydrometer glass and it turned from a nice sweet thing into a typical young pear cider flavour.
The Gravity has dropped to 1006, luckily I didn't add priming sugar to the keg but a short squirt on the Hambleton Bard.
I think this may take a while to condition as I may have kegged a low stopped ferment.

 

[Stu]

Interesting Tony. I did actually get round to bottling mine last Sunday before I nearly missed my flight (another story) hence why I didn't mention it.

Someone mentioned to me that they rather liked "Scrumpy style" cider so I offered to bottle one up without any additional sugar to ensure it was kept flat. I also tried a bit.

In my (very humble) opinion, it tasted not only apple like (rather than pear - not surprising as no pear ever saw this brew), but it also tasted rather thin. I've thrown it in our "hot room" to condition. I'm rather worried I'm going to give most of this away.

 

[calumscott]

Edited all the post titles to correct the spelling of Wilko. :thumb:

 

[Clint Eastwood]

Interesting Tony. I did actually get round to bottling mine last Sunday before I nearly missed my flight (another story) hence why I didn't mention it.

Someone mentioned to me that they rather liked "Scrumpy style" cider so I offered to bottle one up without any additional sugar to ensure it was kept flat. I also tried a bit.

In my (very humble) opinion, it tasted not only apple like (rather than pear - not surprising as no pear ever saw this brew), but it also tasted rather thin. I've thrown it in our "hot room" to condition. I'm rather worried I'm going to give most of this away.

Mine was a really powerful pear flavour almost alcopop in strength. But is mellowing out and becoming a little cidery.
I poured a little tumbler last night and it had quite a good head on it which probably comes from the malt, at least it has cleared now. (Not used to having a head on my cider ) So fingers crossed it may turn out to be quite a nice drink.

 

[Rwilts]

I did this kit last year and left at least two months in the bottle before trying it. Pretty happy and the two cases I gave away both reported that it was good. Will be getting another on for the summer when my house sale inspired brewing break is over :

 

[Stu]

So this hasn't turned out quite the way I wanted it to.

Recipe was made up;

1kg of Brew Enhancer
300g Sugar
3 litres of apple juice
With priming, it's probably ~6% (5.78% before priming - 1.050 down to 1.006)

So that's more than enough sugar.

It smelt peary enough, but when I was bottling it, it tasted more appley cider.

Anyway, I threw it in the hot room for a couple of weeks, prime batched.

I took a bottle out. Smells like pear cider, but by George it's very, very dry. Like proper dry cider.
Packs a punch mind (well it would do at 6%).

The missus says she'll have a go, but only with a bit of blackcurrant. Suits me, mind.

 

[Kinleycat]

Chucked one of these in a FV this afternoon with 2kg of granulated sugar and got a OG of 1060.
So a whopping 6.9% if it gets to the suggested 1008.
Smells deelish and very artificially "pear drop" like, like kopperberg et al.
Quite looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

I tried another couple of these last week it is definitely improving with age.
It's starting to lose the alco pop taste and tastes a little more "Real" if you know what I mean. :)

 

[Kinleycat]

Two weeks in the FV and its dropped from 1060 to 1013 and there is still plenty of action going on.
I'll leave this now until Sunday to see if its dropped further.

 

[Kinleycat]

Down to 1009 so if it hasn't budged by Tuesday it will be getting bottled.
OG was 1060 so it should be reasonably "potent"!!

 

[Kinleycat]

I assume this requires no back sweetening.

 

[Rwilts]

Nope. Just the sugar for secondary fermentation in the bottle. :

 

[Kinleycat]

Bottled yesterday into pint bottles with a teaspoon of granulated sugar to prime.
Not hugely impresive at this stage but very definately got the "pear drop" flavour.
Gone into summer holiday's storage!!! :thumb:

 

[stanglish]

Got this one done & bottled. Seems okay but very cloudy at the moment. As a newbie I was utterly disorganised and as I was concerned about a drop in temperature to approx 18 degrees shortly after kicking off I left it a good while (3 weeks at least) to ferment out which it seemed to do ok.

As I say, still very cloudly and I've had a few bottles somewhere cold for a while but she's not for clearing. I either unsettled the yeast too much during bottling, or this is naturally a fairly cloudly one? I've seen people adding pectin/pectolase but was reticent to do so with this being a kit (wasn't sure if there was any with the yeast mix etc).

Also during bottling I did a split of granulated sugar (ferment was done with brewing yest but I subsequently read that with cider granulated could bring on some nice fruityness) and fruit syrups. I was generous with both the sugar and the syrup (did the maths on how much equated to a teaspoon of pure sugar) but got very little in terms of secondary fermentation. Any idea why that would happen? I'm guessing that it all fermented out as the gravity indicated it had done but maybe died afterwards? My fault for bottling too late perhaps?

Altogether a hell of a lot of little titbits to learn and apply for next time which together with more attention to detail should create a better final result.

 

[Kinleycat]

Got this one done & bottled. Seems okay but very cloudy at the moment. As a newbie I was utterly disorganised and as I was concerned about a drop in temperature to approx 18 degrees shortly after kicking off I left it a good while (3 weeks at least) to ferment out which it seemed to do ok.

As I say, still very cloudly and I've had a few bottles somewhere cold for a while but she's not for clearing. I either unsettled the yeast too much during bottling, or this is naturally a fairly cloudly one? I've seen people adding pectin/pectolase but was reticent to do so with this being a kit (wasn't sure if there was any with the yeast mix etc). Also not sure how much I car

Also during bottling I did a split of granulated sugar (ferment was done with brewing yest but I subsequently read that with cider granulated could bring on some nice fruityness) and fruit syrups. I was generous with both the sugar and the syrup (did the maths on how much equated to a teaspoon of pure sugar) but got very little in terms of secondary fermentation. Any idea why that would happen? I'm guessing that it all fermented out as the gravity indicated it had done but maybe died afterwards? My fault for bottling too late perhaps?

Altogether a hell of a lot of little titbits to learn and apply for next time which together with more attention to detail should create a better final result.

Mine is too, never brewed this kit so not sure about its clarity. Its been bottled for about three weeks and still remains murky.
I've put it away for the summer holidays so we will see if another five weeks "improves" it! :thumb:

 

[Rwilts]

I think it was at least two months in winter garage before it dropped clear. Will be putting another on this year so will see if it acts the same.

 

[samnorfolk]

Got this kit on the go at the min and its smelling sweet but in around 1.5 kg sugar and made it up to 20 litres, question is I currently have it in a FV now when its reached required gravity do I transfer this straight into pressurised bottles to clear ( wont that then leave sediment in the bottle?) or I suppose I could transfer to my pressure barrel and bulk prime the lot leave to clear then transfer into bottles?

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

You need to clear before you prime, and priming should be done immediately before bottling. Bulk-priming makes sense in this instance though as 20L of perry will fill 30-40 bottles, so priming them all individually will be hard work.

As soon as the perry is clear, make a sugar syrup containing the right amount of sugar (10g/litre, so 200g for 20L) and put it into your barrel, then rack the perry onto the syrup and stir to combine. Bottle immediately.

You'll still get sediment in the bottles, because you'll get extra fermentation from priming, but there'd be much more if you hadn't let the perry clear.