You will be able to make "a" perry from them however they are desert pears and lack a couple of things that are essential for good perry.
I make cider from commercial "from concentrate" apple juice and it has the same problem as it is made from desert apples.
What you need to do is alter the chemical profile of your juice to be more like a perry pear.
For apples that means adding tannin and malic acid - I imagine it'll be exactly the same for pears.
The tannin gives the backbone to your cider/perry, without it your brew will be very thin and insipid. I use wine tannin from my local homebrew shop but you could just brew up a ludicrous mug of tea with half a dozen teabags...
The malic acid is the interesting one, this gives the "sour" to sour and bittersour apples used in cider making - again, I assume the same is true of pears.
If you get it right, you will lower the pH of the juice into the range where, after the yeast does it's job, a bacterium called Lactobacillus takes over converting the malic acid to lactic acid which is far milder and as a by product produces chemicals called esters which give you that "proper cider" flavour.
Lactobacillus is everywhere so getting your brew innoculated shouldn't be too hard but the most robust way is to culture and use the yeast from Westons Old Rosie. You could of course just pitch dried cider or champagne yeast let it ferment, then chuck in the dregs from a bottle of Old Rosie once the initial fermentation is finished.
The last thing you need is time, loads and loads of time. Ciders need to be aged for a very long time. Traditionally this would be over the entire winter. I'll be getting my cider on in the next week or two, after initial fermentation (two or three weeks) I'll rack all 5 gallons to a sterilised fermenting vessel and there it will stay in the cold, under airlock, until May or early June before bottling.
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August 23, 2011, 09:17