prickly pear wine...

[cosmiccowboy]

Anyone ever made any? We sure have a bumper crop of pear apples at the ranch...I was thinking about trying it...

[glen]

Never tried it but my mom comes to my place and picks them and makes jelly out of them. She got mad when I told her next Spring Im hitting them hard with Remedy and diesel fuel.

[Mike Javi Cooper]

Anyone ever made any? We sure have a bumper crop of pear apples at the ranch...I was thinking about trying it...

Nope... but I sure do like the jelly made from them..

[cj7zrcool]

Anyone ever made any? We sure have a bumper crop of pear apples at the ranch...I was thinking about trying it...

You don't have a hair on your *** if you don't make a batch and bring/send it to Bownanza in 8 months!

[Solocam00]

I love the jelly, just wish I knew how to make it

[glen]

jelly is real easy/ take fruit and boil it down and crush it up. strain it out and boil it with pectin sugar and lime juice. put in jars and enjoy later.

[Flame-Tamer]

How do you keep the small annoying thorns out of it..

[trozy55]

i have always wanted to just could never get enough fruits, if you make let us know how it turns out, i have heard that it can be really good.

[Katch66]

Never tried it but my mom comes to my place and picks them and makes jelly out of them. She got mad when I told her next Spring Im hitting them hard with Remedy and diesel fuel.

My mom and grandma used to make jelly from them. It was tasty!

[Montec man]

Maybe Simek will chime in. I think he's made some before.

[Texas Techsan]

I have never had the wine or jelly but one of the hands that used to work on our ranch, used to cut them, peel them and eat them raw. I tried it once, not a fan.

[poisonedbrew]

i used to peel, rinse and put in pickle juice.....put in the fridge and eat um in a few days.

[Jmh05]

Holycow Poisonedbrew, you must have some cajones to eat that kinda of stuff! I'd like to try it, maybe once...

[simek]

I have made cactus flower wine, but neveir prickly pear. The following is from www.jackkeller.net. It is where I get all my wine recipes.

The Texas prickly pear cactus is the Opuntia lindheimeri. The broad leaves, called pads or nopalitos, produce pretty yellow to red flowers in spring, which in turn produce red to purple fruit in fall. Both the pads and fruit are edible, but both have tufts of spines protecting them. The spines can be long and large on the pads, but those on the fruit are usually extremely small but just as painful. The peeled fruit has an aroma similar to watermelon. The fruit is the part of the cactus from which wine can be made.

One word of caution. There is a substance in the pigmented fruit of the prickly pear cactus that nearly 1% of the population has an allergy to. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition lists the Opuntia species of the Cactaceae genus on their "Vascular Plants List" of the "Poisonous Plants Database." This listing simply means that toxic effects have been associated with the plants listed by one or more researchers and should not be cited as a definitive conclusion of safety or toxicity. I have drank large quantities of this wine and suffered no ill effects, but you may be among the 1% that would suffer. Thus, you have been advised....


PRICKLY PEAR CACTUS WINE
5-6 lb. prickly pear fruit
2-1/2 lb. granulated sugar
1 tsp. acid blend
1 gallon water
wine yeast and nutrient

Put prickly pear cactus fruit in large crock or pail. Pour one gallon boiling water over fruit. Wait two minutes (to loosen skin) and drain off water. Allow fruit to cool and carefully peel skin off, being especially watchful not to touch spines. Cut fruit into pieces not larger than one inch, put in pot, add 1/2 gallon water, bring to boil. Reduce heat to maintain gentle boil for 15 minutes. Cover pot and allow to cool to luke warm. Pour fruit and juice into large nylon grain-bag (fine mesh) or sieve and squeeze juice into primary fermentation vessel. Discard pulp. To juice, add sugar, acid blend, yeast and nutrient and stir to dissolve sugar. Cover well and set in warm place for seven days, stirring daily. Siphon off lees into secondary fermentation vessel, top up with water, fit airlock, and let stand three weeks. Rack and top up, then rack again in two months. Allow to clear, rack again if necessary, and bottle. May taste after one year, but improves with age. [Author's own recipe.]

[Draco]

Use a small propane torch to singe off the spines before you pick. One person to burn and one to pick. That's the way we did it when I was a kid.