Im pretty sure that some people actually burn the prickers off and filter late to be sure those prickers dont get in their wine bottles. I would imagine the seeds would give an off taste and would not recommend thm being in the must while fermenting.

I have never seen this fruit before so youll have to decide. It most likely would do fine just cut up and put into the fermenter with 1 galln of boiling water poured over it. Make sure to use pectic enzyme in any fruit batch as it will help break down the cellular structure of the fruit rendering more flavor and color extarction.

Check out this site and bookmark as he is the "Godfather" of wine making alhough I dont agree with a lot of his sugar additions as they tend to have very igh starting gravities resulting in wines with very high ab that usually hidesa lot of fruit flavor.

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/prickly.asp

"Thanks Wade, that link was very helpful.
I"m still left with a bit of a concern. It"s going to be a bit of a hassle to get that much fruit and I"d hate to waste it.
The link you sent seems to waste an awful lot of fruit material, while I saw other links mentioning fermenting the entire fruit chopped skin and all. The range is quite extreme.
I think I"m pretty set in terms of process, it"s the fruit preparation I"m having trouble with locking down.
I guess I"ll have to try and see. I"ll let you guys know how it turns out."

"BD. You sound by far the most experianced here with cactus. So question: Is this not an innulin based sugar? Do you not need to bake or boil it to invert or release it like blue agave? Tequila, mescale?

I am ignorant about this except for some reading.

If so, then does take a lot of pounds of the fruits of prickly pear to produce a gallon of quality product without added sugar to up the OG? Diluted taste.

If yoou don't have a quality wine, mash or great essence for a neutral, than you are stuck with ""La Boons a Farma"", Feb. 09, Was a great month.

Jp.

PS. Have you tried the millet yet?"

"BD.

I think you are going to enjoy one of the best treats of your distilling carreer when that Millet ages. Did you use the white Proso? I haven't tried any of the others yet, but thats what is used as feedstock here instead of just waterway control and hay.

Now for the oats. This is the opposite. An extremely mild flavor, that beats any other white. This is way far the favorite of all the ladies, and men too that want a mild flavored mixed drink, hide your breathe, etc/ some say, it makes the very best martini in the world.

Here is my experiance: My very first runs with the oats was I think from 4way after spending 6 months of searching for a recipe. He suggested rolled oats and thats where I began. Bought 50#'s of rolled oats and started 2 mashes. Just like oatmeal made very thick porridge. Mashed it with enzymes, thinned a bit. Fermented , and it went well. Collection time- I got a gal. off the top, put the rest into a 5 gal. nylon paint strainer bag, mashed, squeezed, twitsted for 24 hours trying to get it out. They both soured.

I then found a sale on organic de'hulled oat verries. Also, a bag of horse oats. Tried them both. Very seriously, the oat berries were the best. Easy crack in my crankenstien. Thing to consider is that the oat berries and other grains as well, are almost double the amount of actual grain without the hulls. Cleaner and much easier to crack. Bit harder to rack though, but not really in the long run.

for me worked fantastic. Easy, can use as UJSM or full mash, or sweetened mash.

Maybe you will do better with the rolled oats than I did. Hope so at least if you go that route."