Port Recipe Thoughts

[dcteague]

I'm going to make a port from blueberry and fig concentrates, and was hoping to get some feedback on the general recipe below:

2.5 gal Recipe

Yeast energizer - 1/2 tbsp
Pectic enzyme - 3/8 tsp
Acid blend - 1.5 tbsp
Camden tables - 5
Wine tannin - 1/16 tsp
Blueberry Concentrate - 32oz
Fig Concentrate - 16oz
Banana - 1
Vanilla Bean - 1
Water - 243oz
Yeast Wyeast - 4767
Oak Chips - 1/2oz

Total Must Volume - 2.25
Total Brandy - 0.75
Ending Volume - 3.0

Primary will be a little over 2 gallons. I'm planning to ferment a bit beyond the target SG for port, and back sweeten to taste, then fortify with cheap brandy to around 20% alcohol. The above are estimated volumes but I'll have to adjust as I measure things along the way - but it should be pretty close. If after fortifying I'm short in my carboy, I'll fill it with marbles or wine. I'll rack to a secondary and add the vanilla and oak, then remove them at some point based on periodic samplings, then rack again, and age in the carboy for 3 month increments until its about 9 months old before I bottle.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

More bananas, more oak, add some dried elderberries, where do you get fig concentrate, it sounds interesting. Have you thought about using a higher alcohol tolerant yeast and starting the gravity around 1.095 and then after it falls to 1.01 boosting it with some sugar back up to 1.02, repeat, repeat and repeat until the yeast gives up? CC

 

[dcteague]

Based on the brix of the above concentrates and the volume of water being added, it should put me at about 1.10 SG to start.

I would think 1 banana for 2.5 gallon of must would be good no? How much more would you recommend? Same on oak - how much more do you recommend?

Seems there are a lot of people using elderberries in ports - is there a specific characteristic they add to taste?

Also interested in your method of feeding more sugars during the fermentation process - is this simply to leverage the wine for alcohol content rather than brandy - to reduce the amount necessary to get to the target SG?

I'm more of a beer maker than wine maker so any input is welcome.

 

[dcteague]

I purchased the fig concentrate from a bulk supplier - looks more for the food industry and use in desserts than wine, but its 100% with no added sugars or preservatives. The only drawback is that I have no idea what type of figs are used - its an experiment that hopefully goes well.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I would probably drop the blueberries, make a separate wine with them. As a beer guy you know you can make beer with a lot of body, adding some extra light dried malt extract to this port would give it some more body. Your not so much going to end up with a port as a high alcohol heavy bodied fig wine, which should be excellent. One problem down the road you might have to watch out for is that figs are kind of already oxidized some, so its easy to loose the wine to oxidation if you dont add enough KMeta throughout the process. You are also going to have a lot of lees in the primary, you may want to consider starting out with an extra gallon of must in the primary so you have plenty to transfer to your secondary when the primary fermentation is over. If you add some ELDME you wont need bananas, oak is always a personal thing, this is going to be a big wine so you can add more later in the secondary if the first addition isnt enough.

Why are you making 2.5 gallons? That seems odd plan. Are you using 3 gallon secondaries? If you feed the yeast a little more sugar as you go you can boost the alcohol level using a yeast like Premier Cuvee or EC1118. Plan on keeping that carboy full of wine, not marbles, you cant drink marbles! If it turns out that you want to add some brandy you just take out some wine and add your brandy, much better to keep that carboy full to keep it from oxidizing and have extra wine than keeping an empty space to add brandy later. If you are worrying about diluting out the wine you can use everclear instead to fortify so you wont need nearly as much. We have made fig + date + raisan wine, we use it to put on top of fruit cake, vastly improves fruitcake to where we can eat it CC

 

[dcteague]

I was planning a 3 gallon batch, so I had targeted a 2.5 primary and 1/2 gallon of fortification plus whatever makes up the gap to fill the carboy during secondary fermentation to eliminate any oxidation issues.

I'm a bit sold on mixing blueberry with fig - about 2/3 blueberry with 1/3 fig was the target. I was thinking the fig would give it the body I needed rather than malt, and if I back sweeten I could bring out the blueberry. Do you think this is going to be a bad mix for a port - I could always back out some fig and fill with more blueberry - not sure there's any recipe I've seen for the mix so figured 1 to 3 would be a good starting point?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I would think the fig would be very heavy and outweigh the blueberry,but I havent tried it. We did make a blueberry with ELDME which turned out very well. The blueberry would provide the acid so you might have a good mix. I would go ahead and make a 3 gallon batch, you dont typically save room for fortification, you can do that just before you bottle, that way you get more port CC

 

[dcteague]

I think I'll stick with most of the original recipe, increase the blueberry to bring it to 3 gallons to start, and add more oak - I've read ports do well with more oak than a non-fortified wine can usually handle. I'll add some elderberry as well.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Elderberry is always a good choice CC

 

[seth8530]

Check out my thread in general wine making a about my black currant port
Lots of good info in there. Your. Recipes seems pretty good to Me... don't be afraid to have some fun with it... I would recommend least doing a 5 gallon batch tho.

 

[seth8530]

I would use 1.5 to 3 0z of medium + toasted oak cubes tho

 

[dcteague]

I think I'm going to move forward maybe this coming weekend and start my fermentation - depends on what I get for xmas

One thing I was curious about, was the concept of fermenting out your plain sugar/water mixture before adding any fruit. I was reading somewhere that fermenting out the plain sugars first, then adding the fruit and allowing it to ferment results in more flavor from the fruits - any thoughts?

 

[seth8530]

That is not really recommended. Sugar water must tend to taste pretty foul. Alsobyou have to contend with the lack of nutrients.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

In the book "Award Winning Wines" they so something similar. In your case you may want to ferment the fig concentrate with every but the blueberries if you wanted to follow this kind of method. That would give your yeast some nutrients plus whatever you else you add, but this style makes it difficult to correct the acid levels prefermentation, you dont know how much acid your blueberries have. CC

 

[dcteague]

So I've finally gotten all my stuff together to start this recipe. I've decided to increase the blueberry and decrease fig, add more oak and elderberries.

I'm going to start my mix this weekend, let it sit a day to get everything well mixed, and start measurements of acids/pH, SG, and adjust from there. I have radiant heat flooring, but a dog so I'm going to pitch the yeast and seal my primary - hopefully given that I'm not using fresh fruit and the temps should be a bit mild, it won't pop my airlock. I'm going to take the advice to slowly add additional sugar to the process periodically and let it ferment till the yeast gives out, then back sweeten and fortify at the end. I'll document things along the way as I go and take measurements, add things, etc. within this thread. Hopefully by the time I'd done, I can consolidate this into a useful recipe.