A recent harvest of prickly pears left my fridge full of frozen fruit pulp and one of the main objectives was to try a batch of wine.  The wine is still in process, so we’ll see how well it comes out.  I crafted my recipe based on various sources over the internet and what I have learned about wine so far.  This post assumes that you already know enough about making wine to properly sanitize.

6 lbs. prickly pears, juiced.
3 qt. Water
2 lbs. sugar
Juice of 1 lime.
¾ tsp yeast nutrient
¾ tsp yeast energizer
¾ tsp pectic enzyme
Flor Sherry Yeast WLP700

OG: 1.090

I previously skinned 6 lbs. of prickly pears and froze what amounted to a little over 3 lbs. of pulp.  I like to freeze fruit that I am going to juice, as the freezing process helps to break down the cell walls.  I added a couple of quarts of water and brought it almost to a boil.  Then I strained the pulp and juice through a cheese cloth and was left with a little over three quarts of juice.

I topped it off to one gallon, added the lime juice, the yeast nutrient, and the yeast energizer, and the sugar.  Then I heated it back up to 165 degrees F to pasteurize it and to make sure the sugar was well dissolved.  Then, over an ice bath, cooled it down to room temperature. You must cool it down before doing anything else.  Higher temperatures from here on out will cause problems.

From here, I added the pectic enzyme and let it sit for 12-24 hours.  This will help to clarify the wine.  Then,  comes the yeast.  I choice Flor Sherry yeast.

I expect that some time down the road I will be back-sweetening it, though I haven’t yet planned on how to do that.  I will either use campden tablets and wine stabilizer, or time to kill the yeast.  Then I’ll add either a simple syrup mixture or perhaps prickly pear nectar.