1st Wine Recipe (Port actually) - with Fig

[dcteague]

So I've brewed beers for a long time, took a break, and have found myself very interested in making a port. A local winery I frequent produced an excellent blueberry port a few years ago, and I've always wanted to try and replicate something similar. In doing some research to come up with a recipe, I began to think about sugar content and found that blueberry is actually a very low sugar fruit in comparison to grapes. The highest fruit I found was fig - which sparked some thought of making a blueberry/fig port. I love figs, and for some reason the combination seems like it could be very good. I'm thinking the sugar content of fig would minimize the need to add sugars if it were made from blueberry alone. I'd like to avoid adding sugar if possible, so I'm thinking I'd likely not dilute the concentrates more than necessary to hit the desired starting SG of 1.095 or so.

Would be interested in thoughts on using fig in a port and if anyone has done this with success.

 

[Arne]

Just out of curiosity, why don't you want to add sugar to bump your s.g. It is going to ferment out anyway, most likely. Just wondering, Arne.

 

[roadwarriorsvt]

There's nothing un-purist about adding sugar.....

 

[Tom_S]

I add sugar to all my batches of wine prior to adding yeast.

 

[dcteague]

Just out of curiosity, why don't you want to add sugar to bump your s.g. It is going to ferment out anyway, most likely. Just wondering, Arne.

I guess I'd just prefer that the wine and alcohol be produced by something with flavor. Sugar as an additive seems a bit artificial I guess - even though I know it is necessary. Would just like to minimize its use somehow and figured a fruit with a high sugar concentration would help in that regard.

 

[dcteague]

So after calculating the various concentrations of my ingredients, my initial juice mixture will be the following:

27% Blueberry
20% Grape
11% Fig
41% Chokeberry

Water to concentrate ratio is 2.1 to 1, resulting in an initial brix of 23 without supplemental sugar - might cut back on one or more if I can get reasonable estimates on acidity/pH balance.

 

[jensmith]

41% chokecherry! I thought you wanted to use naturaly sweet fruit? If they were dead ripe and frosted they may add more sweet then sour. If not they will up your acidity. Unless I am thinking of a different chokecherry then you are using. If so disregard my coment!
I can't eat cane suger. However if I let the yeast eat it for me I can then drink the wine after it has gone dry with no problem. I don't consider it a factor in the finished wine( alergey wise) . I do use frozen apple juice concentrate as a sweetner in baking. If you really want to not add cane suger to your must try the apple juice concentrate instead. Or whatever 100% juice concentrate you want. Apple has the mildest taste, but grape has more suger.

 

[dcteague]

I've read that chokeberry is very acidic, so I'll have to see how this mix works once I have it ready to go. If its to acidic, I'll probably add in more fig and adjust from there. I'm thinking I will end up increasing fig and blueberry a bit more, then dropping back on the concord grape and chokeberry since I've read both can be a bit acidic.

 

[Stressbaby]

Chokeberry and chokecherry are different fruits.
Chokeberry is Aronia, usually A. melanocarpa. Chokecherry is a Prunus.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

If you want to add more flavor than just sugar then use honey instead, a nice wildflower would go well with blueberries. Also know that your blueberries can be hard to ferment, search posts on here about blueberries. That said, we made a blueberry port from berries and it was great, so good luck, use a very strong yeast. One problem you might see with the figs is that they are already somewhat oxidized, I am not confident that a first wine using figs and blueberries would be a good combo. You might want to make a separate batch of each. We made a fig wine, added dates and raisans, its like drinking fruit cake! CC

 

[dcteague]

Good info on the figs and blueberry issues. I'll probably proceed though - assuming I hit the right SG, and acidity levels can be somewhat close to a typical wine, I'm thinking it should be not much different than a grape wine albeit flavored a bit differently. Seems my biggest challenge will be getting the balance of pH, acidity and sugars right before pitching.

 

[dcteague]

So it was mentioned I might try using honey instead of sugar to sweeten the wine pre-fermentation. How about Agave?

 

[jensmith]

I have used agave instead of some of the suger. It fermented just fine. I have not used straight agave yet. I am waiting for an empty carboy! There is a post somewhere about using agave instead if honey in a mead type wine. I do know it is good in coffe!