Unexpected TA and PH results from a perry pear, are these normal?

[William Grote]

Evening all!

First experience with pears this past weekend, hoping to gain more insight!

One of our club members has a gorgeous pear tree, 50 feet tall,  that had been growing as a water shoot out of large stump when he purchased the land 40 years ago, so the tree is likely over 100 years old, we deduce, as the original stump was huge, he recalls.   We think it might have planted as a pollinator.   The fruits are small russeted green pears, which get slightly reddish on the areas facing south, and are quite tannic.   When they fall naturally they are already brown on the inside, and when picked from the tree the ones that feel even the slighted bit soft  are usually half brown from the inside out,  the rest are hard but very very juicy.

I just juiced 3 of the smaller ones, strained though a coffee filter, and got the following results 

70 ml of juice

pH was 3.18

SG was 1.055

TA - ( for malic using a wine test kit ) was 14 g/l ????

Now you would expect the juice to taste like an acid bomb, but it doesn't, it tastes quite nice actually, certainly not like it has 14g/liter acid, I double checked the TA, and ran the same testing solutions on some apple juice just to make sure it was not expired and giving false results, all looks good

So, I'm wondering.

What are typical acid and sugar levels for perry pears?  

Can there be so much sorbitol that juice with a pH of 3.18 and a TA of 14 tastes good?

Cheers and thanks

William

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le dimanche 1 octobre 2017 20:31:07 UTC-4, William Grote a écrit :

I just juiced 3 of the smaller ones, strained though a coffee filter, and got the following results 

70 ml of juice

pH was 3.18

SG was 1.055

TA - ( for malic using a wine test kit ) was 14 g/l ????

Now you would expect the juice to taste like an acid bomb, but it doesn't, it tastes quite nice actually, certainly not like it has 14g/liter acid, I double checked the TA, and ran the same testing solutions on some apple juice just to make sure it was not expired and giving false results, all looks good

Yes it does look high, but pears can be quite acidic.
Also, your pH and TA measures are very consistant - if you look at the pH vs TA graph in my book, you'll see that your measures fall almost exactly on the average line. This means that both measures would have to be wrong by the same amount, which is quite unlikely.
I would then tend to trust your numbers. Try again tasting it, and while doing so, try to imagine how it would taste if the sugar was gone...
Claude

[downside perry]

Hello
I would suggest that you need to test a lot more than 3 fruits to get the average! You may have just put through 3 that where very fresh and therefore quite acidic. The fruits that are bletted may be much lower. There can be a huge difference based on how far gone they are.
They look like good pears though. I am always looking for higher acid pears to balance the blend so you are lucky. If you are fermenting these on their own, I'd suggest letting them blett for another week and testing again. Just watch they don't go too far!

[Thomas Smit]

Hi,

Looking for perry pears I came across mention of beurre bosc as a perry pear. I thought it was more an eating/cooking pear? Does it add sweetness?

I chose 4 Yellow Huffcap, 4 Gin and 2 Beurre Bosc. To be ordered later this year

Decided not to buy the Moorcroft pear, starts rotting very quickly. The others I can pick and store until all have been picked.

There is a Green Horse perry pear. Available in Victoria but then I cannot bring the tree into Tasmania! Is it worth really looking for?


Tom

[gloria bell]

I've had Bosc perry and it was nice, not overly complex but very easy to drink and the flavour of the pear itself carried through nicely.  I found it refreshing and light.

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[Thomas Smit]

Nice to know. Would gin or yellow huffcap crosspollinate it?

Tom

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[Royal Magnell]

Wow. Those are wild numbers. I pressed some Bartlett pears this harvest and are very much the opposite. Low acid high pH. Maybe bend your pears with a dessert pear? Pressing pears is quite the PITA. There must be some tricks but I don't know them!

[downside perry]

There is no trick to it.
Dessert pears are totally unsuitable. Perry pears are perhaps the easiest fruit you can press.

[Gloria Bell]

William.

How has the fermentation going?  How did the whole batch after pressing read in terms of TA, pH and SG?  These pears look so much like the ones I found growing wild this year and the one gallon batch I made tastes fabulous but wasn't as high in TA.  So much flavour.  LOVE it!  Hope it's all good!

[bembel]

On my phone so please excuse typos. The fascinating thing, after my initial test we left the pears in cold storage to Wait for the pear specific PME to arrive. When we finally milled them we left them mixed with the enzyme for 36 hours and pressed them  at the tail end of a Apple pressing , filling two cheeses on top of A stack of previously pressed apples cheeses. We got 12 gallons 

out of 15 gallons of macerated pulp so the yield was excellent but the quality of the juice was not nearly as good as from the test pressing I had made to weeks prior. The TA had dropped from 14 to 10 and the brix had dropped by at least two points plus the incredible aroma  and flavor was now subdued. 

 They’ve been fermenting with R2 at 38F for 3 months now with one small addition of FermO. I measured SG a week ago at 1.011. Taste  and aroma are lovely- subtle  but still very tart   I’ve racked 2 times and just added a vial of MLB and moved them to 55F To try to calm down that acidity and there are still quite a bit of Haze that I’m hoping will clear before Glintcap🤓

Will keep you posted. 

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