Blackberry port yeast?

[Spekky]

Hi, fellow brewers.
I'm very new to making wine. I have one gallon of blackberry wine in a secondary and 3 galleons of vanilla apricot mead in a primary bubbling away nicely. That's all the experience I have but they both seem to be going well. Anyway i have 24 kg of wild blackberry's in my freezer and I would love to make a batch of sweet blackberry port with them.
I have heard nothing but good about Jack Keller's recipe and I would like to follow it but our Local brew shop does not sell Lalvin K1-V1116. They recommended I try challenge vintage red and lalvin rhone 2226 which they do sell. My question is has anyone tried these yeasts for port and will it work ok?
Also can I use more blackberry's they the recipe suggests? I have an abundance of blackberry's. Yum.
Thanks for your help.

Here's jacks recipe.

3 gallon

11 kg. ripe blackberry
933ml. red grape concentrate
1.1/2c. light dry malt
2.4 kg. granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp. pectic enzyme
1.5 to 3 tsp. acid blend
6.9 - 7.8 lts water (depends of size of berries)
3 crushed Campden tablet
1 1/2 tsp. yeast energizer
3 tsp. yest nutrient
1 pkt. Lalvin K1-V1116 (Montpellier) or a port wine yeast

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Where are you at? You can make 100% blackberry juice and ferment that, only problem is the acid levels, so dont add any acid even if you follow the recipe above without testing to TA with a kit. The malt gives it some body. The energizer/nutrient need to be updated, something like Fermaid K or Superfood is the modern equivalent. You can also step feed this, start at around 1.10 and when the yeast take the gravity down to 1.010 and enough sugar to raise it to 1.020 and repeat as many times as your yeast will eat it. EC1118 and Premier Cuvee are also good yeasts to use that ferment well and have high alcohol tolerances. WVMJ

 

[Spekky]

Thank you mountain Jack. I'm in Melbourne, Australia. It seems that a few things are different here. I have got a yeast nutrient that reads on the pack " nutrient salts. This additive provides the yeast with essential nutrients needed for fermentation. It also assists in the prevention of the generation of hydrogen sulphide. Dose 3 gram per 10 letres."
I'm assuming this is the right stuff?
I can get EC-1118, which is what I have used in my blackberry wine but I thought that it would result in a drier port?
Sorry, I'm so new to this and I have read so many different methods. I just wanted to start with the best posiable recipe to give me a better chance of succeeding. Lol.
Feeding the sugar in bit by bit sounds good but what would be the difference to just adding the sugar in all at once? Is this so you can get more work out of your yeast?
Thanks heaps for your help. With out this forum I would not be able to attempt wine at all because I don't know anyone else that has ever made wine.

 

[salcoco]

adding sugar all a once will create an environment not friendly to the yeast. the step feed ,method should get you to about 16-18% abv. the sweetness will come from the addition of the last sugar step that does not ferment. also you can add more sugar based on bench trials to get the sweetness level you desire.

 

[Spekky]

Thanks, Step feeding sounds perfect. I will definitely give that a go. I am attending a short 2 hour wine coarse at my local brew shop in February so I will wait till after that to start my batch. I'm so excited. By then I will probably have about 40kg of wild blackberry's in my freezer. I'm a bit addicted to picking them. Lol. It's been a great year for fruit here in Melbourne. I also have way too many plums and apricots from my trees.

 

[Spekky]

Well, my freezer is bursting full Of blackberry's and I can still pick more. I don't think I can wait till I do the wine coarse to start my Blackberry port as I would like to free up some space. I still have two questions
1 I don't have an acid test kit can I get away without one or should I try and get one first? I have a ph teSt pen but that's it.
2 how would I adjust the above recipe so I can use 23kg of blackberry's? Do I still only do 3 galleons and use more fruit per gallon or do I do a bigger batch?
Thanks.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

No Freaking out allowed here, remember this is fun!! You are starting out of the gates with an advanced recipe vs just making a straightforward blackberry wine. How are your berries? Are these wild ones? Very soft and ripe? Blackberries usually have a bit of acid in them so the first thing is DONT add acid, right now their sweetness may be hiding how acidic they are. You can drop the red grape concentrate and just go with all blackberry juice with your ELDME and rest of the ingredients.

You can figure out the TA of a wine using a pH meter, something like you add NAOH to the sample until it reaches a target pH. You can do a search on it, TA with a pH meter. You can also add potassium carbonate to lower the acid levels if they seem to high. Old timers just dump a bunch of blackberries in a bucket with sugar and a pack of yeast and make good blackberry wine, we go thru all this trouble with measuring TA etc to take it up a notch and so we know what is going on, not just hoping it turns out ok.

Until you get all your kit and a class go ahead and make this batch, its a lot of fun. Do you guys have elderberries growing in your area that are edible?

WVMJ

 

[Spekky]

Thanks. I thought I may have chose a hard wine to start with but who doesn't love a bit of port!!! Lol. ill do a bit more research and see how I go. I am having loads of fun. It's so rewarding learning new things. If I make a mistake and it doesn't work I will still have had fun picking the berrys with my kids and learning from my mistakes.

No we don't have elderberries growing wild I'm not sure if it's cold enough here but I'm looking into buying some plants and giving them a go. I looked up your website, what I wouldn't give for some of your elderberry plants. Wow. They are amazing. Well done.
I'm also looking into blueberries. I just planted a loganberry vine. Yum! We have loads of wild apple trees. My next adventure might be cider.

 

[Spekky]

I forgot to mention that my blackberry's are wild most are nice and ripe. I go out every day and puck only the best ones. So they are still a bit sour, firm and not to squishy. We have had a bit of rain so some are the biggest I've ever seen in the wild.

 

[Spekky]

Well, I defrosted 11kg of blackberry's. Popped them in a muslin bag, squashed as much as I could. Once I got as much juice as I could I place the bag of pulp in the bucket with the juice, added the campdon tablets, yeast nutrient and one liter of water that I desolved a kg of sugar into.
I then tested the sg and it was 1120 and the ph was 2.3. Should I add acid blend?
I want to step feed it as Mountain Jack sugested. Should I add more water to get the sg up to 1100
I will then leave it fro 24 hours to let the campton tablets do their job. Then I will add EC-1118 yeast.
I also don't have any yeast energizer. Can I go with out? The brew shop is half an hour from here.

 

[Deezil]

No no no acid blend. 2.3 pH is low, and needs to be raised (7 is neutral, less is more acidic and more is more alkaline), so to raise the pH is to make it less acidic.

You can do this with water, but you'll thin the flavor.

You can use carbonate, but I can't remember right now if it's calcium or potassium carbonate that you want pre-fermentation. I'm leaning towards calcium but don't take my word for it unless someone else confirms it.

If you want to drop the SG as well, try water; blackberry is rather bold normally. But go slow and check both parameters often. Really slow, really often. If your SG hit 1.100, or your pH hits 3.4, without the other parameter being correct, you'll have to use other methods of adjustment from there. Stop when the first parameter is correct, whichever it is.

 

[Spekky]

I forgot to mention, I also added the light dry malt.

 

[Spekky]

Thanks Deezil, I'll take it nice and slow. Will the pulp in the muslin bag affect the readings? As it won't mix through as well?
I'm hoping if the flavour is to thin I can add an f-pack later.
I also have more blackberries and red grape juice I can use.
Sorry if these are stupid questions. I try and do as much reading as I can before I drill you guys but I'm one that learns from experience.
Thanks heaps for your help.

 

[Deezil]

The pulp shouldn't be too much of a factor, but you can bob it up and down some to make you feel better; it's the fermentation activity that gets most of the goodies out of the pulp - color, tannin, etc. Too many solids in the sample can actually throw off the readings, so it's a good practice to get used to, bagging the fruit

 

[byathread]

I have heard nothing but good about Jack Keller's recipe and I would like to follow it but our Local brew shop does not sell Lalvin K1-V1116. They recommended I try challenge vintage red and lalvin rhone 2226 which they do sell. My question is has anyone tried these yeasts for port and will it work ok?

I just stumbled upon this thread, so I realize it might not be useful in this instance...but, for future reference, here's a great link to yeast choices (from Lallemand/Lalvin/Enoferm). I haven't used this yeast for port (or anything else) but it has this to say about Lalvin Rhone 2226:

Lalvin Rhone2226 is a vineyard isolate from Côtes du Rhône. It is very alcohol tolerant and is highly recommended for high sugar reds and late harvest wines. In red varietals, high color and good structure as well as black cherry, berry and ‘cherry cola’ aromas characterize Lalvin Rhone 2226.

Sounds promising. According to the chart, it is also alcohol tolerant to 18%, is a fast fermenter and stacks up well to K1V-11116, except it has relatively HIGH nitrogen demand compared to K1V's LOW nitrogen demand. So, I think this yeast would do the job and turn out a decent port, however, I would not only step feed it the additional sugar, but I would do some stepped nutrient additions, as well as thorough aeration (a drill-mounted mix-stir works well here) for the first 3-4 days to get this off to a rocking start. Keep us posted as to how your first attempt at blackberry port goes. And remember, a big wine like this won't really start to shine for a couple years, so make another one soon with all those blackberries!!!

 

[Spekky]

So, I got the sg to 1100 after adding about half a kettle. but my ph is now reading 2.0. I'm not sure if that's correct so I'll have to see if my ph pen is reading correctly tomorrow.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

How many times have we mentioned not adding acid? Its a bit sprightly at the moment and your sg is high. But you are going to keep feeding this after the gravity drops to 1.01, adding raw sugar and stirring it in so you dont dilute the flavors with more water. At the very end you are going to sweeten this up so that will balance some of the acid. Since you are a newbie I have to ask how good are you with a pH meter, tricky things those are to get right. You are going to need some kind of yeast food for a high gravity tough ferment, you need to get this stuff lined up ahead of time so you dont start off stressing the yeast to much and then try to save them later. By the time you read this you have probably already innoculated your yeast, get some kind of nutrients in there and keep everything stirred up twice a day if you can. Doing a port style like this for us we like as much juice as possible and we worry about balancing the acid later, sometimes if you add to much potassium carbonate you can flatten out the berry taste to much, not what you are looking to do with this kind of wine. WVMJ

Well, I defrosted 11kg of blackberry's. Popped them in a muslin bag, squashed as much as I could. Once I got as much juice as I could I place the bag of pulp in the bucket with the juice, added the campdon tablets, yeast nutrient and one liter of water that I desolved a kg of sugar into.
I then tested the sg and it was 1120 and the ph was 2.3. Should I add acid blend?
I want to step feed it as Mountain Jack sugested. Should I add more water to get the sg up to 1100
I will then leave it fro 24 hours to let the campton tablets do their job. Then I will add EC-1118 yeast.
I also don't have any yeast energizer. Can I go with out? The brew shop is half an hour from here.

 

[Spekky]

Thanks WVMJ, I'm after a full bodied sweet port but I'm new to this so I'm kind expecting it not to work as planed, though I'm hopeful. I have not added any acid as you sugested earlier. I have only had experience with a ph pen for my fish tank as I have kept many different sorts of fish over the years but it might be different because this is a cheaper pen.
I have yeast nutrient and I will get some yeast energizer first thing in the morning. I haven't added the yeast yet I was going to add that 24 hours after I added the compten tables. So I'll leave the must be till I get the energiser and I'll start the yeast tomorrow lunch with will be 24hours after the Compton tablets.
Once the yeast is in I will be watching it like a hawk and following what you have suggested.
Thanks again. I hope I'm not frustrating you all too much with my lack of knowledge.
Cheers.