Prickly Pear Saison?

Has anyone used prickly pears in a beer? They opuntia will be loaded with them soon.

Last year at the Firestone beer festival I tried a prickly pear Saison from New Belgium that I really liked.

When I was in college we used to steep them in spiced cider and drink it warm with early times whiskey when camping on the Channel Islands.

I have a bunch forming on my cacti. If I can get to them before the critters do a Saison sounds like the ticket!

That has been my plan for a while now. I just have to get the prickly pears when they are in season. It requires a lot of them to get much flavor.

Isn’t prickly pear sort of tart and pinkish/red ?  I was thinking it was. If so, that’d be great in saison.

It is. Not a ton of flavor. I was thinking about 2 lbs per gallon

That sounds like a nice match with saison. And the added color would be a bonus.

Yes, I was thinking 2 lbs per gallon as well. Maybe have it ready for Valentine’s Day.

Just harvested about 100 prickly pears yesterday.  Processed them today, flamed off the glochids,  peeled and pureed, strained the seeds out.  I got about 1 gallon of juice.  I will add some to the boil and some in secondary.  I tried a little in my agave wheat  tonight and love it. I decided to brew my agave wheat substituting local cactus honey for the agave nectar and adding the prickly pears.  I will brew next week.  Froze the juice tonight.

I would skip adding it to the boil. You will set the pectin and lose a lot of flavor and aroma

Thanks for the tip.  I will not boil it

+1.  I’d add it to secondary and rack on top of the puree. The turbulence of primary fermentation can drive off more of the fruit character with the CO2 than in a gentler secondary fermentation. I look forward to hearing how it comes out. Sounds really interesting in a saison.

This sounds interesting. How is the taste when used in a beer? The one time I tried prickly pear fruits (tuna) I thought it tasted like cotton candy/bubble gum. Plus, it had a lot of gelatin consistency. I would like to attempt a mead with them.