Every year there seems to be one crop that suddenly gets out of hand.

This time, it was pears. Gifted by my father-in-law, who was experiencing ‘Pear-ageddon’.

I had far more than we were going to get through fresh, and after already using some for jam and other preserves, I wanted to try something different. So rather than turning another batch into something for the pantry, I decided to have a go at making homemade pear wine. (Yes I know, usually pears are turned into ‘Perry’, but I dont have the equipment and I think i tried it once and wasnt a fan).

I’ve been making beer and the occasional wine at home for a couple of years now, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert brewer. Like most of the things I make for The Hand-Made Way, this was another case of learning by doing; taking something I already had, trying a practical skill, and seeing what came out the other end.

And in this case, what came out the other end was rather stronger than expected!

Making Wine With a Glut of Pears

For this batch I used 5 kg of pears.

One thing I was very keen to avoid was peeling another enormous pile of them. After making pear jam, I’d already had quite enough of that job.

So for the wine I simply:

• cored the pears
• left the skins on
• roughly chopped them

That made preparing a fairly large quantity of fruit considerably quicker.

I then gently heated the pears in water for a short time. The idea wasn’t to cook them until soft (I didn’t particularly want a cooked-pear flavour in the finished wine) but to help release some of the juice and sugars from the fruit.

Heating them also gave me a way of dealing with the naturally occurring yeasts and microorganisms on the pears before introducing the wine yeast I actually wanted to use, without using Camden Tablets.

This article contains affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend equipment I use myself or believe is genuinely useful.

Ingredients I Used

For my batch of pear wine, I used:

• 5 kg pears
• 2.8 kg white granulated sugar
• bottled spring water
• 2¼ teaspoons pectolase / pectic enzyme
• wine yeast
• yeast nutrient

I used ordinary white granulated sugar rather than brewer’s sugar. I’ve used both before and, personally, I haven’t noticed enough difference to make me feel I need a specialist brewing sugar for something like this.

Equipment

The main piece of equipment I used for the primary fermentation was a 12-litre fermenting bucket.

I have larger fermenters that I use for beer, but for wine I quite like using a smaller vessel fitted with a tap near the bottom. It makes taking samples for hydrometer readings and transferring the wine considerably easier.

I also used:

• fermenting bucket
• demijohns
• hydrometer
• muslin straining bag
• second bucket
• siphon
• sterilised jug
• bottles

The bottles weren’t originally what I intended to use.

I had bought some push-in style corks because I thought they’d make a nice change from screw caps, only to discover that they didn’t actually fit the bottles I had.

One of those little jobs that works perfectly in your head until you actually try it. So the pear wine ended up going into swing-top bottles instead

Sterilising the Brewing Equipment

Before doing anything with the fruit, I sterilised everything that was going to come into contact with the wine. I now use a no-rinse brewing sanitiser.

I used to use a standard sterilising solution, but after one batch ended up tasting suspiciously like disinfectant (most likely because I hadn’t rinsed something properly) I changed over.

Since then I’ve found no-rinse sanitiser much easier to work with, particularly for awkward pieces of equipment such as siphon tubing.

When you’re going to spend months waiting for something to ferment and mature, losing the whole batch to contaminated equipment would be a particularly frustrating way for it to end.

Preparing the Pears

Once the pears were cored and roughly chopped, I heated them gently in water.

Again, the aim here wasn’t to stew the fruit. I simply wanted to start releasing some of the juice and sugars while also treating the fruit before fermentation.

I then transferred everything into the primary fermentation bucket. Separately, I heated around 3 litres of water and dissolved the 2.8 kg of granulated sugar into it.

I deliberately didn’t boil the pears and sugar together. That would have started taking us rather closer to making pear jam — and I’d already made enough of that.

This time, we wanted wine.

Adding Pectolase

Once the fruit and sugar solution were together, I added 2¼ teaspoons of pectolase, also known as pectic enzyme.

I then loosely fitted the lid and left everything for around 24 hours.

At this stage there was no yeast in the mixture, so I wasn’t actually fermenting anything yet.

The fruit, pectolase and sugar solution were simply being given time to work together before the yeast was introduced. I still preferred to have the lid loosely covering the bucket rather than leaving the mixture completely open.

My logic is I’d already gone to the effort of sterilising the equipment and dealing with any naturally occurring yeast on the fruit, so allowing whatever happened to be floating around the kitchen back into the bucket didn’t seem particularly helpful.

Adding the Yeast

After the initial 24-hour period, I prepared and added the wine yeast along with yeast nutrient.

From there, fermentation could properly begin.

This is the stage where the sugar in the mixture starts being converted by the yeast, producing the alcohol that eventually turns the pear mixture into wine. And then comes one of the harder parts of home brewing:

waiting.

Straining the Pear Wine

Once the initial fruit fermentation had done its job, I needed to get all that pear pulp back out again.

For this I used a large muslin straining bag placed inside a second bucket.

The entire contents of the fermenter could then be tipped through it, leaving the liquid behind while containing the fruit.

It essentially became a giant (and rather boozy) tea bag.

There was still a surprising amount of liquid trapped inside the fruit, so I gave the bag a careful squeeze to recover as much as I could.

A towel underneath would also have been a very good idea.

I discovered that part slightly later than would have been ideal.

Moving the Wine Into Demijohns

Once the fruit had been removed, the wine was transferred into demijohns for the longer secondary fermentation and ageing stage.

This is where the project took a rather unexpected break.

Between being away, thinking I’d lost some of the original footage and then putting the demijohns somewhere safe, I managed to leave the pear wine alone for around a year.

Apparently putting something somewhere safe and forgetting it exists is also a form of ageing.

By the time I came back to it, the wine had had plenty of time to settle and mature.

What Happened With the Second Demijohn?

I had enough wine to completely fill one demijohn, but not quite enough to properly fill the second.

At the time, I decided to top the second one up with water.

My logic was based loosely on the idea of spirits being diluted from cask strength before bottling.

Wine, as it turns out, wasn’t necessarily the best place to apply that particular logic. Yes, you can back fill SMALL amounts…. i dont think 1/3 of a demijohn is a small amount!

I’ve since seen people sterilise glass marbles and add those to a demijohn to raise the liquid level without diluting the wine.

That’s something I simply didn’t know when I made this batch.

And that’s exactly the sort of thing I enjoy about these projects.Sometimes you only discover the better method after you’ve already tried the first one.

Racking and Bottling the Pear Wine

Before bottling, everything went through another round of sterilising.

The bottles had already been washed, but I soaked them again in the no-rinse sanitising solution, along with the siphon and other equipment.

I then carefully siphoned the pear wine from the demijohns into the bottles.

Normally I use a small valve on the end of my filling setup.

Unfortunately, because I tend to make things seasonally and then put the equipment away for months at a time, I had placed that particular piece somewhere exceptionally safe.

Which means I have absolutely no idea where it is.

Instead, I kept a sterilised jug nearby to catch the siphon between bottles.

It wasn’t quite as elegant, but importantly, I managed to bottle the wine without covering the kitchen in it.

Sometimes that’s victory enough.

How Strong Was the Homemade Pear Wine?

This is where things became interesting.

To estimate the alcohol content, I used hydrometer readings taken before and after fermentation.

The calculation I used in the video was:

(Original Gravity − Final Gravity) × 131.25 = ABV

Using the readings from this batch:

1.140 − 0.986 = 0.154

Then:

0.154 × 131.25 = approximately 20.2% ABV

So instead of producing an ordinary-strength table wine, I’d apparently made something much closer to a dessert wine or port-style strength.

That definitely wasn’t what I had expected when I started chopping pears.

A quick note here: hydrometer-based ABV calculations are estimates rather than laboratory measurements, so I treat that 20.2% figure as my calculated result for this batch, rather than claiming it as a professionally verified alcohol strength.

What Did the Pear Wine Taste Like?

There was only one way to finish the experiment.

Taste it.

The first thing that stood out was how dry the wine had become.

The undiluted batch had a surprising amount of warmth to it as well — hardly surprising given the calculated alcohol content.

Despite that, I actually really liked it.

It was dry, strong and much closer to something I’d drink as a small dessert wine than a large glass of ordinary wine.

Which made me particularly glad I’d ended up using smaller bottles. I may try it in future with lemonade as a Spritzer.

The demijohn I’d topped up with water was noticeably different.

It wasn’t unpleasant, but it tasted exactly like you’d probably expect:

like diluted wine.

So that’s one experiment I don’t think I’ll repeat.

What I’d Do Differently Next Time

There are a few useful lessons I’ll take into the next batch.

Don’t automatically top up with water

My attempt to fill the second demijohn by simply adding water didn’t ruin the wine, but it clearly weakened the flavour.

Next time I’ll look at better ways of reducing the empty space in a partially filled demijohn.

Think more carefully about the starting sugar

The finished wine came out considerably stronger than I originally expected.

If I wanted something closer to a conventional table wine next time, I’d pay much more attention to the starting gravity and sugar level rather than simply aiming for a strong fermentation.

Dryness can be adjusted separately

This batch fermented very dry.

Back-sweetening is something I’m interested in experimenting with in future batches, although that deals with the sweetness of the finished wine rather than undoing the alcohol already created during fermentation.

Keep track of brewing equipment

Somewhere in my house is a perfectly good bottle-filling valve.

One day I may even find it.

Would I Make Pear Wine Again?

Definitely.

This wasn’t a perfectly controlled winemaking experiment, and there are already things I’d change if I made another batch.

But that’s part of the reason I enjoyed it.

I started with a glut of pears that needed using, learned a little more about fermentation, discovered why topping up wine with water perhaps isn’t my finest idea, and ended up with something genuinely enjoyable at the end.

That’s exactly what The Hand-Made Way is about for me.

Not becoming an expert in every subject overnight, but slowly adding practical skills and learning what works by actually giving things a go.

I’ve also got more fruit wines planned, including blackberry wine, elderberry wine and possibly ginger wine for Christmas.

So I suspect this won’t be the last demijohn disappearing into a cupboard for a while.

Watch the Full Pear Wine Video

If you’d like to see the process rather than just read about it, the full video follows the batch from a mountain of fresh pears through fermentation, straining, racking, bottling and finally the taste test.

Watch: How I Made Homemade Pear Wine | From Fresh Pears to the Bottle

Thanks for reading, and until next time — keep crafting independence, one skill at a time.