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One of the useful skills I picked up while in Saudi Arabia was how to manage home fermentation. I won't say that I am particularly good at it but I did enough experimentation there to get an idea of the ingredients and equipment needed, and of how the process should generally work.

A former resident or owner of the house I'm in now planted white grape vines (pernicious things) and a pear tree, among other interesting flora. I picked the pears over a month ago--apparently you have to put them into cold storage for weeks to ripen them, you can't pull a ripe pear from a pear tree--and harvested several pounds of grapes a few days ago.

The beauty of fermentation is that you can ferment just about anything that contains sufficient food for the yeast. And fortunately, yeast aren't that picky. Humans have probably been managing fermentation for thousands of years, probably at least as long as we have had containers or other ways to store fruit or grain.

I brought back 16 of the green glass bottles from Saudi, and my decanting equipment, but I needed some fermentation containers. You'll recall that I used a 20-liter plastic Coleman cooler for my primary and new 20-liter plastic water bottles for my secondary containers (I would even take them back with yeast sediment on the bottom to exchange for a new one). I figured that it was time for an upgrade, so I got some glass carboys at the local brew shop.

I decided to start with a small batch of pear wine--emphasis on small since I might end up with around three gallons of the stuff in the end. The pear mash (which I flavored with fresh grated ginger and black peppercorns) is settling in.




I haven't added the yeast yet. Most of the recipes I found for making wine from fresh fruit suggested letting the mash sit for a day or two before adding the yeast. (None of them said why to do this but perhaps it is to equalize the sugar in the solution or let the pH change or something.) Since I've only attempted whine from juice, it will be interesting to see how this experiment proceeds.

I could discover in a few weeks that I fermented up a couple of gallons of shite but that wouldn't be the first time. I've got several pounds of white grapes in the freezer waiting for round number two!