Brewing Pear Cider

6 min readSep 19, 2022

I recently found myself with a large quantity of pears on the pear tree in my front yard and decided to embark on an adventure and attempt to brew hard cider. I knew nothing about the process, but had a bit of a time crunch — I had to figure out what to do before the pears spoiled.

Large blue wheelbarrow filled to the brim with ripe green pears

There are about as many opinions on how to brew cider as there are people talking about it, so I did my best to understand the principles and science behind the process and then take the simplest path forward. I went with a simple, safe, controlled process figuring I could experiment later if this worked out okay.

Below are my notes on the process, including the planning steps, supplies needed, ingredients, and the process at each step along the way. As of this writing I’ve tasted multiple samples (which were promising) and completed the bottling process, but have not yet tasted the final product. I’ll update this post along the way with tasting notes. Regardless of this, the fermentation process went perfectly and your end result could be wildly different based upon the pears (or other fruit) you use, how you juice the fruit, the yeast you use, and the flavorings you use (among other things).

Planning

Choose your yeast carefully. SafCider AB-1 is a safe bet, but if you want a different flavor profile you’ll want a different yeast. Search SafCider on NorthernBrewer.com.
Shipping can take time so plan well in advance of starting the process (I cut it REALLY close because I placed my order the day I started picking pears off my tree)

Reusable Supplies

If you’re just starting out I recommend a starter kit. In fact, you might want to start with two kits.

2 buckets. These should be about 1 gallon larger than the quantity of juice/cider you’re working with. At least one of these should have a tap or spigot.
2 lids. At least one of these will need a hole and rubber gasket for an airlock.
1–2 airlocks (one per lid)
Hydrometer
Test tube (sized to the hydrometer, for taking readings)
2 siphon tubes (need to fit both your bottle fillers and the spigots on your buckets)
2 bottle fillers (hard plastic tube that attaches to the siphon tubing for filling the bottles when you push down on it). You only need one, but if it breaks you do NOT want to be without one.
1 bottle capper
1 bottle brush
long stainless steel spoon (plastic can do in a pinch)
pen
paper
(optional) carboy (for extended aging before bottling)

Consumables (per batch of cider)

3–5 1oz packets of no-rinse sanitizer (1oz makes 1 gallon of sanitizer). I made do with 3, but more is better. Don’t run out.
1 campden tablets per gallon (for unpasturized, raw cider)
1oz/10 gallon pectic enzyme
1oz/5 gallon yeast packet
1oz/5 gallon yeast nutrients (approx)
1oz/gallon Priming Sugar
bottles (12oz: 10.7/gallon, 16oz: 8/gallon, 22oz: 5.8/gallon)
caps (same as the number of bottles, with extras)

Prepare Cider

Crush & Juice fruit (I used pears right from my pear tree!). While most brewers recommend the crush + press method for my first try I had some pears that weren’t quite ripe and we chopped and boiled these to soften them before pressing to juice
Filter pear juice using strainer + doubled cheesecloth
Pour juice into prep bucket
Add Pectic Enzyme (1/2 tsp / gallon)
Add 1 Campden tablet (crushed) per gallon (needed for raw, unpasturized cider)
Stir slowly until all powder is dissolved
Allow juice to rest for 24–48 hours
do NOT use an airlock (a loose-fitting lid or airlock without liquid should work ok)

Brewing

Fermentation

Pour juice into fermentation bucket (don’t be shy — oxygenation here is a good thing)
Pull a sample of the cider and take your first Specific Gravity reading. Write this down! This is your OG — Original Gravity
(optionally) Add 2–4 cinnamon sticks and 6–8 whole cloves (if desired). You can also/instead use some combination of vanilla beans, coriander, anise or crystallized ginger.
(optionally) You can also/instead add fruit puree such as cherry, rasberry, black currant, or cranberry. Note that this will change the fermentation (generally cause additional fermentation as it is increasing sugar), so proceed with caution.

Rehydrate yeast

Boil 2 cups of water for 3 minutes to sterilize
Allow water to cool to 95–105°F
Pour 10ml of water per gram of yeast (typically 1g yeast per gallon of cider) to a sanitized bowl (larger surface area is better)
Carefully mix in 1 tsp/gallon of yeast nutrient
Sprinkle yeast on water and let sit for 15mins . Do not stir.

Pitching

Stir the rehydrated yeast to form a “cream” and pour over the top of the cider in the fermentation bucket
Firmly secure the lid of the bucket
Add a small amount of water to the airlock (the leftover and cool sterilized water from the rehydration process works well). Note the “max fill” lines on both sides of the airlock and balance the water between them
Insert the airlock into the lid of the bucket

Monitoring

Within the next 12–24 hours the airlock should start bubbling, indicating that fermentation has started.
When the airlock stops bubbling (could be 1–7 days after it starts) take your second Specific Gravity reading.
Wait two days and then take another Specific Gravity reading. Repeat this step until you get two reading in a row that match.
Once you have two stable readings, fermentation is complete!

Racking

Carefully move cider into racking bucket, making sure to leave behind any lees (settled debris) and floating yeast foam
(optionally) Add spices (no fruit or sugar!) at this stage if you wish. I haven’t done this, but some brewers suggest it.
Let rest for 2–10 days (if leaving more than 5 days, consider removing the flavoring after 5–7 days, depending on your preference)
Remember that aging is good, but not necessarily in plastic buckets. If aging more than a week you should be using a carboy
Don’t be afraid to do this 2–3 times (my first time brewing cider I racked twice for 2–3 days each)

Bottling

This process is a lot easier with two (or more) people.

Clean, sanitize, and rinse your bottles, caps, bottling hoses, and bottling bucket
Prep priming sugar — 1oz per gallon, mixed into 1/2 cup of water per gallon. Heat the water and slowly stir in the sugar with a sanitized spoon. Be careful not to boil. (This is a good guidline, but you can make adjustments using one of the Priming Sugar Calculators below. The standard guidline is based upon a CO2 volume of 2.6, but you can go up or down from here.)
Once cool, add priming sugar to the bottling bucket
Carefully move cider into bottling bucket, making sure to leave behind any lees (settled debris), flavoring, and floating yeast foam
Attach the bottle filler via siphon
Move the bottling bucket to an elevated position
Fill each bottle one at a time. Fill between 1" and 1/4" of the top of the bottle (once you remove the bottle filler you’ll find you gain an extra 1" of buffer)
Cap each bottle, taking care to press firmly to get a nice closed cap

Aging

Now that the bottling is done, we wait! Since this is my first time, I don’t really know what the best time will be. I’m planning to open one bottle every 1–2 months until I find the optimal aging period. I’ve seen other brewers recommend anything from 2 weeks to 6 months to begin enjoying the cider.

Notes

Sanitize religiously. Seriously, if it’s a thing that touches the cider or anything that touches the cider, clean & sanitize it. Every bowl, spoon, and pitcher.
When taking a hydrometer reading (Specific Gravity), fill a test cylinder with cider, float the hydrometer and give it a slight spin. Take the reading once it settles into place, right at the surface of the liquid. Discard the cider used for this test (don’t add it back to the bucket). I recommend taking a taste test of the cider from this sample each time to get a feel for how it’s progressing.
You’ll lose at least a 1/2 gallon of cider in the process (from taking samples, discarding lees & yeast foam, etc). Consider this in your calculations on things like bucket size and number of bottles.