Pears

[Mrs Ava]

Have today come home from the plot with yet another 2 carrier bags of pears - conference and commice.  Have wrapped 2 trays of very hard ones in newspaper and have them in the garage to see if they will store until the olds come up from Devon mid December.  Have bottled another 3 huge kilners.  Have juiced a bag full and am eating 1 a day for lunch.  This still leaves me with one hell of a pile of pears!  The farmer recommended pear jelly.  Has anyone every made this and are pears low in pectin as I do have some powdered pectin I could use to ensure a good set.

Thanks kindly!

[Mrs Ava]

[jennym]

Haven't tried making pear jelly - have done jam and it was not easy to set, I thought it'd be easy like apples, but no way!
This may be relevant to jelly but relates to jam - the way I did the jam was to peel, core and chop up the pears into small pieces, then put into a bowl with an equal weight of sugar and some lemon juice and leave overnight. The moisture comes out of the pears this way and you dont need to add water - if you do add water, the pear jam seemed to take forever to get to the right consistency, literally hours  :( I tried it once.
However the final jam was very nice tasting, a mild golden coloured jam, very suitable for those who don't like acidic tastes.

[Mrs Ava]

Thanks Jen, that is what I will do, but I will leave it overnight, cook it down for a bit, then strain it through a bag before adding sugar and see how it goes.  Will only do a small amount, a pint or so to start incase it is a total failure.  ;D

[manicscousers]

we've stewed some conference in cider and frozen, we have two freezers now, 'cos of the plot, otherwise we had to give everyone a compulsory pear and sent a tray to the nursery my sister worked in, they cut them up for the tinies so no bugs  :)

[muddy boots]

How about making some Perry!  2.2lb sugar per gall of juice - I'm afraid I leave you to work out the maths for smaller quantities ???

Leave with an airlock and wait for six months.  Is gorgeous :D

[Mrs Ava]

Is it really that easy MB?  Ava and I have never made anything technical like booooooooooze - apart from the sloe gin/vodka and so on.  We tried cider, but it turned to a strange drain cleaner  :o.  We wouldn't know where to start.  Don't you have to be incredibly sterile and use alsorts of techy things brought from secret shops? :-\

[muddy boots]

Nothing secret or techy at all :)

All I did was get a 5 gall beer making barrel from Boots, with airlock built in.  Got the apple juice from local farm which has an 'Apple Sunday' where you can get the freshly pressed juice.  Did exactly what I said, 2.2lb sugar/gall well stirred into the juice and waited for six months.  Use more sugar if you like it sweeter.  Did exactly the same with the pear juice which, IMHO, was much better!

Never done any of the complicated wine stuff!  Also, as there is a tap on the barrel, just dispense when required  ;D

[Chantenay]

Have you tried pickled pears in raspberry vingar? My friend ate a whole jar once without pause!