Seckle Pears
Its hard to tell from this picture, but these pears are very small, not very tasty, and many of the were rotten. To make good perry we had to cut each one open to make sure no rotten ones were pressed.
Variety Unknown
These pears were picked last weekend right here on Ivory Silo Farm. (See last weeks post.) They are tasty ripe or hard, but we did have to cut off a bunch of bad spots and rotten parts.
Angelica Di Saonara?
We purchased a bushel of these pears from The Buckle Farm. Jim Buckle had a clue from the previous owners of his farm as to the variety, and in my search, Angelica Di Saonara was the closest I could fine. A European variety from Italy that is green and red in color and is drought resistant.
Leaf from the Pears from The Buckle Farm
I was trying to compare this to the pictures of leaves of Angelica Di Saonara pears on line. Its close.
They were almost as tasty as our pears and in much better shape. We hardly threw anything in the compost from this batch. Since tasty isnt what we are looking for in a pear for perry, we are hoping these pears will blend well with the almost inedible seckle pears for a good perry. Its all an experiment.
The Press
This cider press has a crusher on it. This makes it easy to make apple cider. Once crushed the slatted bucket is just pulled forward under the press and another vessel is placed under the front to catch the juice. (See last years post for more on this process.) But with pears its seems you need to let them oxidize after crushing for up to 24 hours to remove some of the tannins so the perry isnt too astringent.
The Work: sorting and cutting
Th Work: crushing
The Crushed Pears
We kept all three pear varieties separate for the fermenting process(washing the press in between crushing each) because we are using the natural bacterias on the skins to ferment the pears. If one variety turns to vinegar at least we might not lose the others. Tomorrow after these have oxidized we will press them into juice!
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