A good place for the basics of port

[rstar26]

As I mentions in a earlier thread of mine, i have been batting the idea around of making a batch of saskatoon berry port in the 3 gallon carboy i have kicking around. I am pretty nebish at this whole game and this will be the forst thing i try that require me making a juice/must from scratch. Is there anywhere on here i can kind a basic fuit port recipe/guide that has an explantion of the steps and things i need to achieve?

I do have a few basic qestions i would like to ask.

1. How many #'s of berries is a good starting point for a 3 gallon batch? Saskatoons are a naturally sweet berry

2. What is generally the best way to extract the juice/flavour from a berry?

3. Is the starting SG for a port basically the same as a wine (1.085 ish?)

4. Any other tips or advice?

 

[buddy]

We don't have any Saskatoon berries here in Ontario otherwise I'd give them a try.
Jack Keller has several recipes on his website you can have a look at them here.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/saskatoo.asp
His first recipe has more fruit per gallon than the other two, I would use those numbers if you have lots of fruit.
Just a caution, his recipes are in U.S. measurements so a pint is equal to 16 ounces instead of 20 ounces for an imperial pint.
Also a U.S. gallon is equal to 128 ounces as opposed to 160 ounces for an imperial gallon.
If you want to convert his recipe to imperial measurements multiply by 1.25
I have no experience with port wines I can't help you beyond this.

 

[rstar26]

Thanks for those links, that will be helpful. Does anyone else have any advice or step lists for ports?

 

[MN-winer]

I just started small batches of port. My first experience was when I didn't like the blueberry wine I made, so I dumped the 4 bottles in the primary and added a pint of brandy and made a flavor pack with 2 lbs of fresh blueberries. Excellent!!!
I've now got a mixed berry port going that I think will be stronger initially so I'm only going to add a flavor pack. I started with 3 large jars of home made jam that we aren't eating fast enough and two frozen concentrate welches. I will add 10 lbs of strawberries via a flavor pack.

There are kits you can buy that are cheap - WE has one for $79 for 15 bottles. Not bad!

I've heard that your ingredients should include malt for more body. I add some tannin instead. Port is fun to experiment with.

 

[rstar26]

So one question i have is: Do you start with a higher SG or still at around 1.090 and ferment to dry and then add the fortification spirit? Or do you ferment less and cut it off with the fortification spirit?