The two Mr. Beer fermentation vessels on the chair hold 1.5 and 2.5 gallons respectively. Both of these currently hold the prickly pear incarnation of my mead. Remember, I'd harvested quite a few beautiful ripe prickly pear fruit back in (yikes!) July:
I'd stored them in the deep freeze, which proved to be a good thing. Donning a thick oven mitt, I cut the ends off each one and peeled them with a potato peeler. Being frozen solid, the process went quickly at first but got messier as the fruit thawed and the juice--the deep burgundy stainable juice--started getting everywhere. And several of those fine prickles worked their way through the oven mitt into various digits of my left hand, but overall it was fairly painless. I placed all the cleaned fruit into a large pot, covered it and left it on the counter overnight. In the morning, the pot was filled with juice--freezing the fruit had ruptured the cell walls, making my job all the easier. After cooking the mix for 45 minutes (I'd been warned that raw prickly pear will foam uncontrollably if fermented) I strained out the pulp and ended up with almost seven cups of intensely colored juice. I divided it proportionally between the 1.5 and 2.5 gallon vessels, and filled with mead. What's cool is that both of these are fairly clear to start with, and should be crystal clear before long (I might not even have to rack again). I usually use green bottles for my mead, but for this batch I'm thinking we need clear bottles to show off the color.
The remaining mead went into two one-gallon glass carboys, formerly containing Central Market Organic Apple Juice. In the leftmost one I added maybe a quarter cup of fresh mint leaves--chocolate mint and spearmint, I believe--at Lisa's request. I'm not a huge mint fan, but this one smells really good. It's pretty dry right now, and I'll probably let it stay that way and not add any more honey. The carboy on the right was the recipient of one honkin' big jalapeño pepper. It's quite ripe, the end of it turning red, and I expect it should convey a great deal of heat to the mead. I sliced the end of the pepper crosswise to ensure the heat from the seeds is able to penetrate the mead. I expect this one will need a good deal of additional honey before its through, along with another racking or two. I anticipate it needing at least a little sweetness to balance the heat. But I'm not 100 percent sure--I'm making this up as I go along, after all.
I've also got some medium toast French oak chips that will go into the prickly pear and jalapeño mead sometime in the future. Is this brewing stuff fun, or what?
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Sweet set-up!
ReplyDeleteYour prickly pears look so dark and luscious--I grew up in central Texas, and all the ones I ever saw were more red-radish colored. Those ones you've got are gorgeous.
I vote yes on the clear bottles.
A few weeks before, I'd driven down to Port Aransas and was amazed at all the prickly pear lining the fence rows along the highway. They were downright dripping with fruit--huge tunas, so dark they were almost black. That's what really got me jazzed for prickly pear mead. Last weekend I was out around Burnet in the Hill Country and found some prickly pear out there with a pink blush to their leaf pads--a few even had a few fruit stragglers still on them. Like you said, the fruit were smaller, pinker and more elongated. Either they were a different species, or a different strain.
ReplyDeleteI know the cactus are raised on a large scale in Mexico as nopales for human consumption (I use the diced cactus in my salsa) but it kind of surprises me that there isn't any significant processing of the fruit. South Texas has so many prickly pears, and there's so much juice in a ripe fruit, I'd think someone would've come up with a use for it beyond homemade jelly...
Yeah. I grew up in the hill country just outside of Austin, and I've got a small place in Bastrop, but the fruit I've seen are as you said; elongated, pinky-red, small.
ReplyDeleteI've seen prickly pear jam, candy (rubbery, like fruit roll-ups), wine, Gelato, and tea, though I suspect a couple of those things are made w/the flowers, not the fruit.
They'd probably be great infused w/vodka.
For as dark as the fruit were, I was surprised by how mild the flavor was. Vaguely melonish. I was expecting something more tart and acidic. Ultimately, I'm going to keep a close eye on the balance to make sure it doesn't come out flat tasting. I've already added some acid blend to sharpen it up, but I expect it's going to need a slight addition of tannin before all is said and done.
ReplyDeleteWant some seeds? I've got a great big pile of them left over!
HOLY moly, no, but thanks for the offer (I have the--what's opposite the color wheel from green? Orange?--I have the orangest thumb ever). I'm wintering in Vermont, and then off to Portland, Oregon in the spring to stay for a while.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm a new kid at GMR (Camille). Hello.
Jesus H. Christ. Keep me in the loop on how those turn out. They look fantastic. And I'm a mead-whore of the first order. Love the stuff. Can't ever get enough of it. Maybe it's because the Vikings drank it. Dunno.
ReplyDelete