Preserving pears

[surfpeach]

Can anyone help? I have a lot of pears that i have just picked and are currently stored in trays to ripen. I would like to preserve them in a syrup or wine, does anyone know any good recipes? Also should the pears be ripe or not when I begin? many thanks Rachel.

[jim]

Dear Surfpeach,

Not my recipe but one beloning to the Marguerite Patten book referred to on another thread:-

12 to 15 pears [size matters!] make approx 5 jam jarsfull.

1 bowl containing a brine of 2 pints of water with 1 table spoon of salt.
Pears, cored and chopped into 1/8s.
Syrup made with 1 pint of water and 4 to 8 oz sugar [depending on how sweet you like it.]
1/4 pint brandy.

Wash, core and chop the pears and soak in the brine 10 minutes.
Remove from brine and place in boiling water for 1 minute.
Pack into sterilized jars as tight as possible.
Mix the brandy with 1 pint COLD sugar syrup and pour into the jars making sure there are no air pockets.
Leave in a cool place 'til Christmas. Check every week to ensure they are not fermenting - un-inspected jars can do a very effective hand grenade impression.
Eat the pears in the syrup with ice cream, or best in my opinion, as a salad with walnuts and blue cheese!

Hope you enjoy it,

Love and Peace
Jim

[surfpeach]

Thank you very much Jim, it sounds lovely. Do you think I should wait until pears ripen as they are all rock hard at the moment? Thanks Rachel.

[ina]

We bottled most of our pears when we still had the big pear tree. In good years we also dried some. My favourite dried fruit...

[MKG]

We have two pear trees. Each year, they crop without fail. It's me, I know, but every year that crop is hard, tasteless, ... worthless?

I did a bit of pear cider this year - accidentally. It was ok ish - nothing to write home about. I'm seriously thinking about having those two trees down - but they're eighty years old, and that hurts me. I'm very fond of the trees - does anyone know what I mean?

Is there anything I can do to improve matters? Another year, maybe, and then they're making way for something more productive - but I feel bad. Make me feel less guilty, someone.

Mike

[Durgan]

Can anyone help? I have a lot of pears that i have just picked and are currently stored in trays to ripen. I would like to preserve them in a syrup or wine, does anyone know any good recipes? Also should the pears be ripe or not when I begin? many thanks Rachel.

http://www.durgan.org/August%202010/19% ... uice/HTML/ 19 August 2010 Pear Juice

This is how my pears or processed. No fuss, no muss and they all get used.

[chilitony]

how many pears have you got, i had about 60 pounds and
i just preserved five gallons of pear cider

[surfpeach]

Many thanks to all of you who replied, I am going to preserve them in jars for xmas, using the recipe Jim has posted. It is the second year of fruiting so not too many, just need to let them ripen up a bit as very hard.

[oldjerry]

Question guys,what's the difference between pear cider and perry? I've seen it for sale,but never tried it (Perry on the other hand.......).

Mike, if your tree WASN'T fruiting I'd say ringbark it,as I've done this with non-fruiting trees,and rejuvenated them,are you CERTAIN that given their age they're not actually a perry variety? (very common round here) If so improve your perry making(mix in another variety maybe) and 'woodcutter spare that tree' !

[phil55494]

Pear cider is a term invented by marketing men.
Perry is a drink with a very long history in the british isles.

I guess some would say that you can only make perry with perry pears and you wouldn't want to be eating them. Pear cider I suppose could be made with non perry pears (ie culinary pears). As for Pyder well that is a mix of apple and pear juice fermented out.

If they are perry pears then don't cut the trees down but you should certainly try and identify the varieties you've got MKG.