Batch 4: The Perry-inator

Inspired by Jimbo's first attempt at Perry (essentially pear cider), my children's love (and admittedly mine too) of the cartoon series "Phineas and Ferb", one of the main characters Perry the platypus aka Agent P, and his nemesis Dr. Doofenshmirtz's who is constantly trying to take over the tri-state area (where I grew up) with the "-inators" he builds, I made an executive decision to make Batch 4: The Perry-inator. Sorry I didn't run it by you first Jim!

My brew will have two distinct differences from Dr. Doofenshmirtz's "-inators": 1. No self-destruct mechanism and 2. This "-intator" will work as intended and achieve it's goal of a delicious perry brew! If you are wondering why I have this diatribe of a back-story and you don't know what an "-inator" is, you obviously don't watch the show and won't be able get it no matter how much I explain it.

(Jim's editorial comment for uneducated readers: I found this helpful. There is a concoction brew-inator!)

Now with that out of the way let's get down to business.

Batch Number: 4
Batch Type: Perry (pear cider)
Date into Primary: 10/28/2011
Yeast Type: Salale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast (lot number: 71325 136 1310) 1/2 packet
Ingredients: Pear juice (Gerber 4 quarts and Looza 4 quarts),
Lyons Market Wickedly Spiked Pear Jam (11 oz.),
Honey (approximately 1 lb),
Pectic enyzme,
Yeast nutrient, and
Yeast energizer
Date into Secondary: 11/08/2011
Date Racked: 1/31/12
Date Racked: 5/1/12
Date Filled: 5/15/12
Comments:

I started by sanitizing the Mr. Beer, a stir-bar, and a dessert teaspoon. I then added 1.5 teaspoon of pectin enzyme, 1.5 teaspoon of yeast nutrient, and a tablespoon of yeast energizer.

I then opened the spiked pear jam. I selected this brand because it was spiced with some interesting ingredients (golden raisins, cinnamon, lemon juice, and allspice), from a local company (Garrettsville, OH), and was sweetened with sugar. When I opened it the smell of cinnamon and allspice was very distinctive, much like apple pie. I microwaved it for one minute to loosen it up and added it to the Mr. Beer using the spoon. I tasted a little of the residual jam left in the jar after adding it to the Mr. Beer and have to be honest and say I was a little disappointed that it didn't taste very peary but more like a highly spiced apple pie.

Next the pear juice was added. The Gerber product was obviously filtered as it was clear and the Looza product was not because it was not only cloudy but also had sediment on the bottom of the bottle. When shopping for the juice there were several other products that were (much) cheaper but these were the only two that had only pear juice and water. The rest had high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener and so I eliminated them as options. It was interesting to note that none of the ones I found were sweetened with sugar...I guess it's too expensive.

The final ingredient, honey, was added on a whim. I had originally intended to add only the jam as the sweetener but after smelling and tasting the jam I was afraid it would have to much of an appley association with the spices added and thought that honey might offset that. I had a new 5 lbs container of honey, figured what the heck, and added about one pound of it to the mix. The pictures at the bottom will give an idea of the amount added.

I then added the stir-bar and a half packet of the yeast. I chose this brand and type of yeast (Fermentis, salale dry ale) instead of our normal stand-by (Red Star, cuvee or côte des blanc) because I was hoping to get a sweeter final product as apposed to a dry one. This was recommended by the friendly and helpful staff at Leeners. I hope it works as this packet or yeast was over six times more expensive than what we usually use. I then took the complete batch downstairs to Agent P's secret brew lair, put the Mr. Beer on the stir-plate, and got the stir-bar spinning.

I hope the final brew will be light, fragrant, and refreshing. I'm fairly confident this formulation will be much sweeter and heavier than the batch 3 perry. My thought is that if this batch is too heavy or sweet it can be blended with batch 3 but my hope is that it will hold up on it's own merits and taste so delicious that we won't want to blend it. Time will tell if this Perryinator works!

Side-note: Because at least four weeks have gone by without having purchased any new "high tech" tools, supplies, or equipment I collected a small sample of the batch (approximately 10-20 ml) in a snack size zip-lock bag and froze it. This was done in anticipation of my future acquisition of a refractometer (model RSG-100ATC) to determine the before and after sugar concentrations of our solution and thereby have the ability to calculate the alcohol content.

10/29/2011 Update:
The stir-bar continues to spin but no vortex can be seen on the surface. However there is an abundance of raisins, pears chunks, and other miscellaneous floaties (presumably from the jam) have risen to the top and there is active and heavy bubbling from the yeast.

11/01/2011 Update:
The fermentation has essentially stopped. Floaties (mostly raisins) are still present, apparently most of the other stuff sank. Stir bar is still spinning.

11/08/2011 Update:
Racked to secondary, very cloudy. Quite a bit of yield loss due to lots of schmutz.

11/09/2011 Update:
Looked at the carboy and saw formation of three distinct layers; a sediment layer (that currently looks very thick) on the bottom, a cloudy layer (this takes up 3/4 of the the carboy), and a top translucent layer only a few inches deep. I'm sure over time (a couple of months) the sediment layer will become thin and compact and the cloudiness will dissipate but there will definitely need to be at least one more racking and a sparkaloid addition before bottling.

12/03/2011 Update:
While in the DD Brewing cellar I had the opportunity to inspect the Perry-inator and noticed a very well defined sediment layer that was more that 1/3 the volume of the batch. The liquid phase was significantly more clear than the previous observation but I wouldn't call it clear yet (on the boarder of translucent and clear).

1/31/2012 Update: Racked

5/1/2012 Update:
Stabilized the approximately 1 gallon batch with 1/2 campden tab and 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate upon racking into a 5 gal corny keg. It will sit there until sweetened, carbonated, and chilled. This will be a test of the modified beergun counter-pressure filling system. Data on 5/1/12 was SG = 1.000, vinometer % ABV was 9.5%, refractometer brix was 32. Taste was light, fruity, but dry. Not too bad, will hopefully be what was hoped for once sweetened and carbonated.

05/11/2012 update:
~07:00 Added two 32oz bottles of Gerber pear juice to the keg. Was surprised when the keg was initially opened with a vacuum (which I will take as a positive sign that there was no addition growth since introduction to the keg). Final volume appeared to be approximately a 1/3 full. Resealed and shook to combine.

~18:00: Moved the keg from the basement to the garage and pressurized to 20 psi.

05/14/2012 update:
The keg has maintained a pressure of 20 psi. I put the keg in the cooler with 29 lbs of ice.

5/15/2012 Update:
We filled it.  Lessons learned from filling:

1) Attach beer gun to ball lock prior to attaching ball lock to pressurized keg
2) Find a way to keep the pressurized beer gun from falling apart
3) Reduce pressure to 5-8psi for actual bottling.  We can determine if 20 psi was good based on how much CO2 is remaining in the perry-inator (Damavandi did not want to open one immediately)
4) We'll need a tall round cooler (like the large ice water beverage ones) so we can really mound up ice in to chill a larger batch in the keg
5) Frozen sanitized bottles and shorter tubing seemed to help foaming/yield (dry ice might have been a bit overkill, though!)
6) Filling outside is a good idea.  It can perhaps be done inside a sink or tub if we master items 1, 2, and 3, but it would have been a disaster this time.

5/29/12 Update:
Tasted good, a bit too sweet for my taste but Hoders liked it a lot.  I think the sweetness is masking some of the acid complexity, but it is more well balanced than previous brews which were all too dry.  It is nicely carbonated!  Yea!  Measured the following:


Bottled Results:
Specific gravity (via hydrometer): 1.150 (sweet!)
Brix (via refractometer): 36
% mass (sacc) (via refractometer): 8.0
% Alcohol (via vinometer): 6.0%
pH (via pH meter): 3.6