Pear Hooch

BB,

It's a basic solar still, traditionally used to get drinking water when there's none readily available in a 'survival' situation

Dig a hole... the size of the hole depends on how thirsty you are versus how large a hole you're willing to dig...

In the traditional use you would line the bottom of the hole with green vegetation, but for our purpose we'll put down a sheet of plastic and then fill the bottom of the hole with our 'over-ripe fruit juice'

Set a bowl in the middle of all this

lay the second sheet of plastic over the top, hold the edges down with rocks so it doesn't collapse into the hole, then place a small rock in the center of the top sheet to create a downward cone.

As the liquid heats it will evap, condense on the top sheet of plastic and run down to the bottom of the cone where it will drip into the bowl...

Of course since this works to get water from vegetation, you'll have to stay on top of it or you'll just keep distilling the water back in. You'd have to experiment with the process to figure out when to pull the plug, in contemporary distillation you can watch for the temperature to suddenly jump and you know it's time to stop but this won't really work here I don't think...

Let me know how it works out...

Hi hairless,

That sounds kinda tasty! You are making me thirsty!

Take care.

The best book that I know of that has all the information needed for beer, wine or spirits is the "Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible." It'll give you all the information you're looking for as well as how to make about 10 different still's at home with materials you already have in the kitchen. It covers the whole gambit of making booze.

Meanwhile, back at pear wine... I dug out a book, SCIENTIFIC WINEMAKING made easy published in 1972. Here is what it had to say about pear wine:

PEAR

Pears do not usually make good wines on their own, having an insipid taste and need to be blended with other fruits in "musts", apples being suitable and usually available at the same time. About 1/3 to half as many apples to pears should be used. The skin of pears are high in tannin.

A press or juice extractor is necessary to obtain an economic yield of juice. If a puree is produced rather than a clear juice, sulphite and stand for 24 hours to enable the solids to fall to the bottom of the container then decant the nearly clear juice. This may be fermented without dilution if the acidity is correct for the style of wine envisaged. Sultanas {golden raisins} and bananas are suitable additives if more body is required.

Given this information, where I recommended a box of golden raisins (in an earlier post), I would up it to two boxes.

Sincerely

Bill

Buy a whole lot of cheap vodka, and soak the pears in it for about a month, then filter off - voila - pear brandy. You might want to add some sugar, as in a lot of sugar.