WineXpert Chocolate Rasberry Port

[Wade E]

Crock of crap if you ask me!!! Its their way of not having to replace it. It will be much sweeter. If they took 10% of your paycheck youd notice it bigtime right? Im not saying it wont be good and hey you might even like it better this way but let me tell you .10 is a very big jump in sweetness!!!!

 

[robie]

Mine made it to just about that and my wife gave out the last bottle!!! Between that and her reorganizing my cellar trying to help me and combining two batches of Raspberry wine with the same labels that I had seperated for a specific reason I had to lock the door and not show anyone where I keep the key!!!

Get a gun!

 

[JNK]

If too sweet fortify it with some brandy

 

[dmulligan]

Crock of crap if you ask me!!! Its their way of not having to replace it. It will be much sweeter. If they took 10% of your paycheck youd notice it bigtime right? Im not saying it wont be good and hey you might even like it better this way but let me tell you .10 is a very big jump in sweetness!!!!

Wade,

That is a good analogy if I were doing side by side comparisons and if my taste buds were able to detect even a 1 cent difference. Paychecks to wine is apples to oranges. We are talking sweetness within a very sweet port.

I do agree that 0.010 is a big difference for dry red wines but compared to the nearly 2KG of sugar being added in the f-pack I really don't believe that 0.010 is much. I've decided to trust them on this one and see how it turns out.

BTW are there any charts that show how much dissolved sugar is left when the SG goes below 1.000?

 

[Wade E]

Not to my knowledge as gar as the chart ges and Im no scientist so maybe one of the smarter guys could answer that. I have made this kit 3 times now including this year and 2 of them stopped at 1.020 so I know exactly what yours is going to come out like. I must say the first time I made this kit I and nobody except maybe Tim Vandergrift had a clue of what was going to happen as it was the year it came out and I was a moderator on another forum and this kit was the hot topic for many many months as most everyones got stuck. The next year Tim V. jumped on Winepress and answered a lot of questions like keeping it very warm and to keep stirring it which probably solved 60% of this problem but IMO they should cut the Chap. pack down a little and I bet everyones kits would finish where the instructions say it should or they should modify the instructions to give a higher broader range for a finishing sg before adding the f-pack and the phone calls they get would drop most likely by 90% and all newbies wouldnt be freaking out!!!! I did actually notice quite a difference between the 2 kits as the first stopped at 1.020 but the 2nd made it down to 1.011 and believe it or not everyone who tasted these side by side could taste the difference which was about 7 people, the rest of the people didnt have the pleasure of having both bottles. If you didnt have them side by side you probably wouldnt notice though. I loved them both so Im not complaining just merely stating that W.E. should really fix this problem by doing one or the other of what Ive stated above.

 

[dmulligan]

Ahh now we are in agreement. Of course I am fairly new at this and still trying to figure out what I am doing wrong in general but I am really starting to get it together. To that and your point I wish they would write either advanced instructions or perhaps give specific instructions with the general instructions as outside tolerances. For instance WE says to keep the wine between 18 and 24C when they should say that 24C is ideal but anywhere between 18 and 24C will work.

In the case of the CRP I most certainly agree that they should be giving more information and tips for success. One tip I read here that makes sense to me and I want to try next time is to break the chap step into 3rds and use SG to judge when to add more sugar. Too much all at once is definitely not working for most people as you said.

Back to my batch; I have estimated the alcohol level to be about 15% based on initial, before chap, after chap and final SG. I think 1.020 to 1.010 is 1.5% potential alcohol. Would you recommend adding enough brandy to make up that 1.5% difference? Maybe a 375mL bottle?

David

 

[Wade E]

I havent fortified any of this yet although I think I might try it with this batch I have aging.

 

[DaveM]

I have fortified a batch of this with 1 cup of Everclear. It does give it more gusto, but not so much that it is hot. I'm still waiting for the batch with Everclear to age sufficiently though. It is only about 11 months old now. Anyway, I think that I enjoyed my batch without the Everclear more, so I didn't add any to my third batch.

 

[steviepointer]

Not to my knowledge as gar as the chart ges and Im no scientist so maybe one of the smarter guys could answer that. I have made this kit 3 times now including this year and 2 of them stopped at 1.020 so I know exactly what yours is going to come out like. I must say the first time I made this kit I and nobody except maybe Tim Vandergrift had a clue of what was going to happen as it was the year it came out and I was a moderator on another forum and this kit was the hot topic for many many months as most everyones got stuck. The next year Tim V. jumped on Winepress and answered a lot of questions like keeping it very warm and to keep stirring it which probably solved 60% of this problem but IMO they should cut the Chap. pack down a little and I bet everyones kits would finish where the instructions say it should or they should modify the instructions to give a higher broader range for a finishing sg before adding the f-pack and the phone calls they get would drop most likely by 90% and all newbies wouldnt be freaking out!!!! I did actually notice quite a difference between the 2 kits as the first stopped at 1.020 but the 2nd made it down to 1.011 and believe it or not everyone who tasted these side by side could taste the difference which was about 7 people, the rest of the people didnt have the pleasure of having both bottles. If you didnt have them side by side you probably wouldnt notice though. I loved them both so Im not complaining just merely stating that W.E. should really fix this problem by doing one or the other of what Ive stated above.

Wade:

I'm getting pretty close to having some free carboys to start this kit. I've never made this kit before.

Should I deviate from the instructions?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Wade E]

Tough decision there. I think if I were to make this again Id reduce the amount of the Chaptalization pack by like 1/4 or 1/3 as it just almost never finishes fermenting leaving this wine sweeter then it is meant to be.

 

[dmulligan]

Tough decision there. I think if I were to make this again Id reduce the amount of the Chaptalization pack by like 1/4 or 1/3 as it just almost never finishes fermenting leaving this wine sweeter then it is meant to be.

What about splitting the chapatalization pack into 2 or 3 and introduce the extra sugar in stages to avoid shocking the yeast?

I was at my LHBS recently and they talked me into their last Blackberry Port kit. By "talked me into it" I mean they poured me a glass and put it in my hand without even asking me. Anyhow I pitched the yeast on Sunday, it is enjoying a constant 23*C, and I gave it a really good stir yesterday. What else should I do to make sure that it ferments down to the recommended SG before chapatalization and is breaking up the chapatalization step I described above a good idea?

David

 

[philogeek]

Completely off-topic, I'm just excited...
While cleaning out my cellar storage yesterday, I discovered 18 bottles of this that I must have simply forgotten about. I bottled it in December of 2008, so it should be pretty awesome at this point! Looking forward to cracking one open soon!

 

[abefroman]

Completely off-topic, I'm just excited...
While cleaning out my cellar storage yesterday, I discovered 18 bottles of this that I must have simply forgotten about. I bottled it in December of 2008, so it should be pretty awesome at this point! Looking forward to cracking one open soon!

Sweet! Let us know how they are.

 

[steviepointer]

Sweet! Let us know how they are.

+1

Please do!

 

[philogeek]

Completely off-topic, I'm just excited...
While cleaning out my cellar storage yesterday, I discovered 18 bottles of this that I must have simply forgotten about. I bottled it in December of 2008, so it should be pretty awesome at this point! Looking forward to cracking one open soon!

Sweet! Let us know how they are.

+1

Please do!

Well, tonight after dinner, I broke out a cheesecake and a bottle of the CRP.
I'm no sommelier, so terminology will fail me, but AMAZING pretty much sums it up.

Before having any cheesecake, I had a distinct taste of vanilla pipe tobacco, maybe a little fine cigar. Like walking into a fine tobacco shop's walk-in humidor... unbelievable. After a bite of cheesecake, the vanilla went away, and the raspberry REALLY came through, simultaneous with the chocolate - neither quit, though... they both kept on going all through the finish. I'm in awe.

Needless to say, I'm glad I found these again and I'm looking forward to seeing what they turn into in another year!

Folks, if you haven't made this kit, and you can find one, DO IT.

 

[steviepointer]

Stalled

Hi all,
So, I got to the stage where I added my chaptalization pack to the primary.

Everything was going along fine. Near the end of the week, I noticed that activity appeared stalled.

However, at the end of the week (according to directions), I took a SG reading, and it was down to 1.020, so I moved it to the 2ndary.

However, 4 days later, it's still at 1.020. Any suggestions? Should I add some energizer or nutrient to it? Another packet of yeast?

Temp is staying between 73 and 75F.

No activity in the air lock.

 

[robie]

I made this same kit, it stopped at 1.010 and never went down any more.
It took well over 1.5 weeks in secondary to get there.

Did you take much of the sediment to the secondary? Hope so!

Open the carboy and stir it really well, well enough that the yeast are well suspended again.

Keep temp up where it is or even higher (75-78F) if possible. (Where it is should be OK.)

Pay no attention to the air lock! It is going very slowly!

If it hasn't gone lower and stopped in another week, it is finished. It will still be fine if it stops at 1.020.

 

[Wade E]

Robie, thats where its supposed to stop isnt ity. I know these arent supposed to make it very low and you are one of the lucky ones that the kit wade it that far. Unfortunately Stevie I highly doubt youll get this any farter but if you want to try get the temp up around 80 and stir it up good. Thats about all you can do with the abv thats present. Making a starter yeast is a waste of time, money, and energy. On the good side there wont be a huge difference and it does taste great even at this sweetness level. If you fortify it with some Everclear or brandy the extra abv will hide the extra sweetness also. This is the 3rd kit Ive made and they all seem to stop there for me despite going nuts trying to get it further.

 

[steviepointer]

Wade:
You've mean you've had it stop at 1.020 after you've added in the CPack?

 

[steviepointer]

Well, i thew a heat belt around it tonight. We will see what it does over the next few days.