BlueElder Port & Wine

[jobe05]

Started 2 new batches today. A 3 gallon batch of regular Elderberry wine and 3 gallons of Blueberry /Elderberry Port. The Port smells awesome right now and they both taste very good.

Here is the wine room these days:

The Bucket on the left is the BlueElder Port. She smells better than she looks. There's 16 pounds of blueberries and 6 1/2 pounds of elder berries in it. Added the usual cast of characters along with 1 pound light Malt which makes it very thick and rich tasting. My yeast choice is KV-1116 to maintain the fruitiness but go to 20%:

I have put the "special" Glass bubbler to work again. I use it on all my good wines as a reminder to the standards I have to uphold when making my wines.

The Elderberry Wine has almost 10 pounds of elderberries and the usual cast members mixed up. It's amazing how cooking the berries with 5# of sugar brings out the awesome flavor of these sour tasting berries. yeast choice was RC-212 to enhance the boldness of the fruit:

Other wines going on the bench:

This is a trial wine made from the Catawba Grapes I have in My yard. So far it taste pretty good. Made about 1.5 gallons:

This is one of 2 gallons of Tomato wine............... I hope aging helps.............

This is a gallon batch of Lilac wine I thought I would try a while back.........
I hope it ages better also.............. sigh........

Also on the bench in various spots are 6 gallons of Old Vines Zin, 3.5 gallons of scuppernong/muscadine mix, 3 gallons of Peach Port, and 3 gallons of Peach Wine that is really good.

 

[Wade E]

Looking good and sounding delish!!!!

 

[Waldo]

Looking good jobe

On your Muscadine/Scuppernong, what ratiodid you use? I am planning a batch here very soon and looking to use 80% Muscadine.

 

[NorthernWinos]

WOW!!!! You've been busy in your Laboratory.

Everything looks great and will be some good tasting wines soon.

 

[jobe05]

Looking good jobe

On your Muscadine/Scuppernong, what ratiodid you use? I am planning a batch here very soon and looking to use 80% Muscadine.

As I recall Waldo, I did the opposite, I used about 20% Muscadine and 80% Scuppernong. However I added the Muscadine because these were the scuppernong that I steamed and didn't have any flavor after fermentation.

It's been sitting there for a year and a half now........ still not happy with it.

I'm thinking of adding oak to the BlueElder Port............... A few ounces of hungarian and a few ounces of french toasted in the Port, and maybe just the french toasted in the Elderberry......... Whaddya think.

 

[Waldo]

Looking good jobe

On your Muscadine/Scuppernong, what ratiodid you use? I am planning a batch here very soon and looking to use 80% Muscadine.

As I recall Waldo, I did the opposite, I used about 20% Muscadine and 80% Scuppernong. However I added the Muscadine because these were the scuppernong that I steamed and didn't have any flavor after fermentation.

It's been sitting there for a year and a half now........ still not happy with it.

I'm thinking of adding oak to the BlueElder Port............... A few ounces of hungarian and a few ounces of french toasted in the Port, and maybe just the french toasted in the Elderberry......... Whaddya think.

Hell boy, i'd use some of that Bulgarian oak in the Port

Seriously, I think definately the Hungarian for the Port and as for the Elderberry, I'm really not sure as i have never made a pure Elderberry.

 

[jobe05]

Hell boy, i'd use some of that Bulgarian oak in the Port

Seriously, I think definately the Hungarian for the Port and as for the Elderberry, I'm really not sure as i have never made a pure Elderberry.

I tried looking for that Bulgarian Oak.......... Heck, Wade and I even went to Bosnia for a while to see if they had it over there........... Nothing....

So.... I stick to the Hungarian.... Medium toast.

To me..... I find the right oak based on....... "Does the must need a smoky, musty woody flavor? Or does it just need to taste like wood?

I think the BluElder would benifit from the medium toast and oaky flavor, where as the elderberry would just need the oak....... but I did add some of the medium toast as well..... so they should both be almost the same.

Now if I could find a way to clean off that green slime that is UNMOVABLE from my spoon...................

 

[Wade E]

Appleman and even Joseph made a trip to Bosnia also! Its the place to be I guess!

 

[jobe05]

Racked the BluElder into a 3 gal secondary today. I have been taste testing all week ( as a good wine maker should ya know

) and decided that I would let it stay were it is rather than add more sugar to it to get the ABV up, right now it should end up at about 13.5%, which at dry, taste good, sweetening it back, may keep some of the alcohol taste away. So far it taste good though, just the right mix of Oak.

Waiting to get this bucket cleaned of the green goooooo before I tackle the Elderberry.

Edit:

Alright............ couldn't stand to think of a Port style wine at 13%......... added more sugar and Malt to bring the SG up a bit and it should ferment to 15%

Surprising how much of the elderberry flavor has come through on this. May have to back sweeten with a little condensed blueberry juice.

Edited by: jobe05

 

[Wade E]

Took a whole 3 hours to cancel out the 13.5% huh!

 

[jobe05]

Racked both the elderberry wine and the BluElder Port. Both are very good so far. I stabilized and put the clearing agent in them, in the last hour, about an inch of sediment has fallen to the bottom of what looked to be already clear wine.

I'm going to sweeten the elderberry back with a bottle of Elderberry Syrup I got in NYC a couple of years ago and the BluElder Port I'm thinking of sweetening back with some condensed Blueberry juice and red grape juice if needed.

Also racked my Peach wine and stabilized and clearing it. Now I have to do the Tomato wine, Lilac wine and the Catawba wine......... It's nice to be able to work in the wine room again. We have a lot of jobs to do with the new business this week and the next few months, so we hired another person to help out.......... it just keeps getting better and better!

 

[NorthernWinos]

Glad your new business is a success...Nice that you are getting a lilttle time for yourself and your wines.....Work and Family Time are good, but Winemaking Time is personal and all ours....

 

[grapeman]

We had a bit of a freeze last night so I went ahead and picked the Catawba grapes. Did you start yours from your grapes you have growing or did you need to buy some or some juice? Are you finishing it semi-sweet or dry? Also what was pH and TA at the beginning. Just wondering because I am stating mine out of the picked grapes. The boys all came out and helped pick them with me today- what an absolute treat and a bit of a shock! I even took pictures of them doing it to prove they helped! We got close to 500 pounds so that should make 30 gallons or so, maybe closer to 40 since they are good and juicy. They are loaded with nice spiciness and are still good and tart- about 18 brix.

 

[jobe05]

TA???? PH?????

I was suppose to check for that??????

The birds left me a hand full.......... or a basket full that weight about 15 pounds. I figured what the heck........ not enough for table grapes or juice so lets try a gallon and see what it does. Brix on the juice was 19.5 so I added a little sugar to bring the SG to 1.080. While fermenting it had a surprising "spicy" or "Floral" noted to it. But now that it's down to .996 it's very dry and ............. well......... not very tasty......... or as tasty as it was. It has a wonderfull straw color, and when sweetened back just a tadd with white grape juice, it taste pretty good. My goal right now for it is to let it clear and stabilize, then this winter I'll set it outside for a couple of weeks in the cold to see if anything drops out.

 

[grapeman]

From what I understand, you want them to be fairly acidic and then sweeten it to balance the acid. It leaves it refreshing and brings the spiciness back out. Tine will tell with mine. I crushed them this afternoon into 2-32 gallon Brutes and they are about full each. I added pectic enzyme and k-meta. I will let them sit for two days and press until I get some pink colors. I will then adjust SG up to about 1.085 and pitch the yeast. It is a different beast working with these bit larger than normal batches.


Hope yours turns out just the way you want it.

 

[jobe05]

I will let them sit for two days and press until I get some pink colors.

I waited to pick mine till the skins were all almost purple and starting to fall off the vine, yet not one bit of color made it . Even in the beginning, it was a straw color. However I didn't leave the must on the skins at all.

Next year I'm hoping to get enough for 2 - 1 gallon batches. One I will do the way Im doing it now, the other I want to add some Elder flowers to see if it will add a nice spiciness to it, like a Piesporter.

 

[grapeman]

Don Kilcoyne of Catherine Valley Winery in the Finger Lakes told me how to get the color by pressing pretty hard. He is hoping to get more color this year by soaking on the skins for two days. He has been making popular Catawba wines for years. I figured it was worth a shot. Mine were also almost purple and starting to fall off the vines. I know when I pressed the Frontenac Gris hard, I got a pink color- see the following picture on the left.

 

[Wade E]

Those sound really good you two especially the Blue Elder Port!