Perry Orchard in the U.S.

[Andrea Kirk]

Does anyone know of any resources? We have bought a 43 acre farm in Kentucky and would like to begin brewing traditional, small-batch artisan Perry in 5-6 years. We have our first Brandywine and Hendre Huffcap trees coming in a couple of weeks. We would like to take the next couple of years learning the craft, but will be making Perry with NO apple infusions. We do not want a sweet tasting product, but prefer a sharp taste. I cannot find any courses focused specifically on Perry making. We work full-time, so any courses would need to be seminars or online.
Thanks, Andrea

[Old Spot]

No one seems to be taking the bait on this one, so I will offer a few thoughts. (At this point I would have to note the universal pet peeve regarding the use of the dreaded word - brewing. Cider, perry and wine is made, not brewed. I will allow others to elaborate on this.)

Regarding perry making, you are correct, there does seem to be relatively little in the way of details available on this topic. In my opinion, this is mostly due to the process being very close, if not identical, to cider making, with the caveat that perry tends to be more error prone and sensitive to sloppy processes. There also seems to be a little more unpredictability with perry in terms of pectins and tannins, sometimes causing unexpected gels and hazes to form. 

Therefor, I would suggest you spend the intervening 7-10 years (I understand perry trees can take longer to crop) until your new trees begin develop modest quantities of fruit to completely master cider making using apples. If you can get your hands on any wild pears or true perry juice in the interim, start to ferment and take thru the bottling process to get a handle on the additional variables.

I have been making cider for about 8 years and in the last 2-3, have started to incorporate wild, tannic and mostly excellent pears into my processes, and am consistently flummoxed with the variability of results. 

[AW]

I will echo Old Spot's advice, with the caveat that most of our perry making experience has been shared (so I am not an entirely independent data point).

Taste as much perry as you can get your hand's on (variety over quantity).

If you can acquire authentic perry pears (or juice, or concentrate) do so and practice the winemaking process.  If you can't find purpose-specific varieties, taste and experiment with seedling or dessert pears. 

Practice making cider as well, 90% of the mechanical and analytical skills are transferable (though sensory evaluation of perry may be a different game).

Plant many varieties...I don't think anyone really knows how perry pear varieties will transplant to specific regions on N American in terms of growth, fruit production and fruit quality.   

On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 11:01:52 AM UTC-8, Andrea Kirk wrote:

[Thomas Smit]

Brewing means boiling. So tea, coffee and beer are brewed. Simple as that/

Tom

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[Wes Cherry]

Few things about pears:

They are susceptible to fireblight.   If it’s in your area, choose varieties carefully.  normanischen is especially susceptible.

As with apples, mid or late season pears are generally better than early pears.

They tend to have excessive astringent  tannins.  Maceration helps, but watch it carefully - you can easily macerate away all the tannins.  I generally don’t macerate my perry pears. It’s better to blend with fruity dessert varieties (Taylor’s gold, comice are good) and retain the tannins.

Pressing most dessert pears is a squishy nightmare.

Use enzymes at press or deal with weird pectinous gels later.  HC and Pec5L at higher doses work for me.

High citric acid varieties can make for a VA issue.  Proper sulfite regimen can prevent this.

Sulfur defects seem to happen more with pears.  Proper yeast nutrition and possibly later copper can help.

Methode champenoise works well with perry.   Biscuit flavors from autolysed yeast pair well with pear flavors. Sorbitol also helps and makes a dry perry approachable. 

Seedling pears, or ones where the seedling rootstock has grown past the scion very often have excellent quality.  Look for old abandoned orchards.   

Also, from a biz perspective, perry is a tough sell.  A good fraction of the visitors to our tasting room have never heard of perry.  It sells well there where we can offer tastes and hand sell it.  It doesn’t do so well in the general market reached by our distributor.

-'//es Cherry

Dragon's Head Cider

Vashon Island, Wa US

www.dragonsheadcider.com

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