Pear Wine Recipe
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The short answer: for one gallon of pear wine, core and chop 4 to 6 pounds of ripe pears, put them in a nylon straining bag with ½ pound of chopped golden raisins, mash them and pour over about 3¼ quarts of boiling water with 1¾ pounds of sugar dissolved in it. Once it cools, add 1½ teaspoons of acid blend, ⅛ teaspoon of grape tannin, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and a crushed Campden tablet, then pectic enzyme 12 hours later. Adjust the sugar to a specific gravity of 1.080 to 1.085, add a Champagne-type yeast, and ferment about a week before draining the fruit. Then rack until it is completely clear.
Pears make a delicate white wine, but they are not as simple as they look. Jack Keller, whose recipe this follows, warns that pear varieties differ a great deal in hardness, sweetness, acidity, tannin and how quickly they brown, and that pear wine is best kept under 12% alcohol.
Recipe card
Pear wine, 1 US gallon
- Makes
- About 5 bottles (750 ml)
- Time to drink
- 6 to 12 months
- Difficulty
- Moderate
Ingredients
- 4 to 6 lb ripe pears, cored, all seeds removed
- ½ lb golden raisins or sultanas, chopped
- About 1¾ lb finely granulated sugar, adjusted to a specific gravity of 1.080 to 1.085
- About 3¼ quarts water (more or less, depending on the fruit)
- 1½ tsp acid blend
- ⅛ tsp grape tannin
- ½ tsp pectic enzyme
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 Campden tablet, crushed
- 1 packet Champagne-type wine yeast, made into a starter
- Ascorbic acid (vitamin C powder), only if your pears brown quickly: ¹⁄₁₆ to ⅛ tsp
Method
- Do the browning test: halve a pear, leave the cut faces up for 15 minutes, and note how brown they turn.
- Boil the water and dissolve the sugar. Wash, core and chop the pears, put them in a nylon bag with the raisins in the primary, and mash.
- Pour the hot sugar water over the fruit and cover. After an hour add the ascorbic acid if needed, the Campden tablet, acid blend, tannin and nutrient.
- After 12 hours add the pectic enzyme. After another 12 hours measure the gravity and add sugar to reach 1.080 to 1.085, then add the active yeast starter.
- Stir daily and press the bag gently for about 7 days, then lift the bag and let it drip drain for an hour without squeezing.
- Settle 24 hours, siphon into a jug under an airlock, rack after 2 to 3 weeks and then every 2 months until the wine drops no sediment for 30 days. Bottle.
Jack Keller’s generic pear wine recipe from his Requested Recipes Collection. Quantities of fruit vary by variety; Keller’s notes explain how to adjust acid and tannin by taste.
Where This Recipe Comes From
The card is Jack Keller’s generic pear wine from his Requested Recipes Collection (compiled 2020), written for a reader with buckets of very ripe pears. Keller is open that every pear variety would ideally have its own recipe, so his version is built to be adjusted: a browning test for ascorbic acid, a gravity range rather than a fixed sugar weight, and a taste check for acid and tannin after the fruit comes out.
University of Georgia Extension’s Winemaking at Home (C717) also prints dry and sweet pear wines. Those are larger, undiluted recipes made from 2½ gallons of mashed fruit with lemon juice and minced raisins, and the sweet version simply adds more sugar syrup. Both sources lean on raisins for body, because pear juice alone makes a thin wine.
Choosing and Preparing the Pears
Know your pear
Keller sorts pears into cooking, canning and eating types, and says that knowing which yours is puts you ahead. They differ in hardness, texture, sweetness, acidity, tannin and how fast they brown, which is why the fruit weight on the card is a range of 4 to 6 pounds.
The browning test
Cut a pear in half and leave both halves cut side up for 15 minutes. If they have turned slightly brown, Keller adds ¹⁄₁₆ teaspoon of powdered ascorbic acid to the must; if they turned really brown, ⅛ teaspoon. He warns not to overdo it. Plain vitamin C powder from a grocery or pharmacy is ascorbic acid.
Remove every seed
Core the pears and take out all the seeds before chopping. Mash rather than blend: University of Wyoming Extension’s fruit wine guide warns against a food processor, which can grind bitterness from seeds and skin into the wine.
Sugar, Acid and Tannin
Aim lower than for other fruit
Keller adds sugar to a starting gravity of 1.080 to 1.085 and says pear wine is best under 12% alcohol. That is a little lower than the 1.090 Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Wine Making for the Home Gardener uses for most fruit wines. Measure your must; ripe dessert pears may need less added sugar than the card lists. Our sugar calculator and hydrometer guide help.
Taste after the fruit comes out
When the bag has drained, Keller tastes the juice: you should taste both acid and tannin. If either is weak, he adds a little more, up to another ½ teaspoon of acid blend and ⅛ teaspoon of tannin, and stirs well. Pears are low in both, which is why a pear wine without them tastes flat.
Getting Pear Wine Clear
Pear wine is famous for holding a haze. Keller’s advice is specific:
- Do not squeeze the bag. Drip drain it for an hour. Squeezing, he says, makes the wine very difficult to clear.
- Use pectic enzyme, added 12 hours after the sulfite.
- Rack until it stops dropping sediment. Rack after 2 to 3 weeks, then every two months, at least twice. Then wait 30 days and look at the bottom of the jug: if there is even a fine dusting, rack and wait again. Bottle only after 30 days with no new sediment.
It is slow, but it means the wine will not throw a deposit in the bottle.
The Best Yeast for Pear Wine
Keller specifies a Champagne yeast and asks you to make a starter at least two hours, ideally six to eight hours, before you need it. Lalvin EC-1118 is the common Champagne-type strain: Lallemand lists it at 18% tolerance and 10 to 30 °C (50 to 86 °F), and it ferments cleanly, which suits a delicate fruit. Compare others on our best wine yeasts page.
Scaling Up: 5 Gallon Pear Wine
| Ingredient | 1 gallon | 5 gallons |
|---|---|---|
| Ripe pears | 4 to 6 lb | 20 to 30 lb |
| Golden raisins | ½ lb | 2½ lb |
| Sugar (to 1.080 to 1.085) | about 1¾ lb | about 9 lb |
| Water | about 3¼ qt | to 5 gallons |
| Acid blend | 1½ tsp | 7½ tsp |
| Grape tannin | ⅛ tsp | ⅝ tsp |
| Pectic enzyme | ½ tsp | 2½ tsp |
| Yeast nutrient | 1 tsp | 5 tsp |
| Campden tablets | 1 | 5 |
| Wine yeast | 1 packet | 1 packet (check the packet’s batch size) |
What you need for a 1 gallon batch
Gear and additives for the recipe card. You add the pears and sugar.
-
1Fermenting kit
Home Brew Ohio Upgraded 1 Gallon Wine from Fruit Kit
A 1 gallon kit for fruit wine; the listing says it includes instructions, a recipe book and a mini auto-siphon for racking.
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2Acid, tannin and pectic enzyme
Oxalis Supply Wine Tannin, Pectic Enzyme and Acid Blend Bundle
The listing bundles all three additives this recipe uses: acid blend, grape tannin and pectic enzyme.
-
3Golden raisins
Jumbo Golden Seedless Raisins, three 15 oz canisters
Golden seedless raisins for the half pound per gallon that gives pear wine its body.
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4Wine yeast
Lalvin EC-1118 Wine Yeast (10 Pack)
Ten 5 g sachets of a robust strain the listing rates for fruit and cider fermentations, up to 18% alcohol and 50 to 86°F.
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5Yeast nutrient
The listing doses it at 1 teaspoon per gallon before fermentation begins.
-
6Campden tablets
Craft A Brew Campden Tablets, 50 Count
Sodium metabisulfite tablets; the listing recommends 1 tablet per gallon, crushed between two spoons.
Common Mistakes With Pear Wine
Too much alcohol
Keller keeps pear wine under 12%. A strong pear wine loses the delicate fruit.
Squeezing the pulp
The single best way to end up with a cloudy pear wine. Drip drain only.
Bottling too soon
Wait until the wine has gone 30 days without dropping any sediment, as Keller describes, or the deposit ends up in the bottles.
Sweetening without stabilizing
If you prefer it off-dry, stabilize with potassium sorbate and a Campden tablet before adding sugar, as Virginia Tech explains for any fruit wine.
For the method behind every fruit wine see how to make wine from fruit, or try our apple wine recipe. Make and drink wine responsibly, and only if you are of legal drinking age.