Wed, 10/03/2012 - 15:19 — rev_joe
So I found a TON of ripe prickly pears by my friends house so I thought I'd put together a little how-to. Check out the pictures here
- First of all you WILL get thorns in your hands, so wear leather gloves untill the thorns have been removed.
- Once you get your haule home, the easiest way to clean them is to start by burning the thorns off over an open flame. Even after this there were still a ton of loose thorns all over them
- Wash under water with a light brush to knock the remaining loose thorns off
- Split them down the middle and scoop the guts out with a large spoon leaving the skin behind
- Once all the meat has been separated from the skin, blend to create a smooth puree
- Check your specific gravity and wieght/volume to aid in your brewing calculations
- My puree went straight into the freezer as I didn't have any beer ready to recieve it yet. If I were doing a sour beer, I would just add it straight into secondary. If I were going for a non-funky beer, I would thaw the puree, heat to pasteurization temp and add some pectic enzyme to aid with clarity.
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Comments
I believe that I have read that indiginous peoples used to roll the catus fruit in sand to remove the cactus pricklers. Might be worth trying before resorting to flames.
Rev Joe, why don't you consider doing a mead with the cactus fruit? Freeze the pulp and then add it to a mead mixture. It just might add enough acid (along with the fermentable sugars) to make a really interesting mead. Deacon Brode, want to weigh in here? Haven't we tasted a prickly pear mead at past tastings? Still, very rare.
Old Jim and I liked Rev Joe's thoughts about the prickly pear fruit so much that we went hunting the wild beaver tail down in San Marcos CA. Got off the beaten path enough and found a real nice stand of it that was full of ripe fruit. Harvested a full 5 gal bucket of dark red fruit. Took it home and roasted all on the BBQ then scooped the pulp out. Jim also pressed the skins with a lemon juicer to extract the maximum juice. We used the blender to purée the pulp and put the whole shiterie into the freezer in several containers. Next up will be a chance to use up the 22 lbs of orange blossom honey that I still have on hand to make up some Beaver Tail Melomel. Yum! Yum!
Of course there is the issue of the tiny little spines in one's hands. A tip here: use something like fine sandpaper to rub the spines off your hands to not drive yourself crazy.