Blackberry Port Questions

[M4rotku]

Hey guys,

I am hoping to make a blackberry port and I have a few questions for the knowledgeable community before I attempt it. I am planning on making the port out of Farmer's Pick (by Welch's) Blackberry Juice (100% juice). While it says 100% juice, not all of the juice is blackberry; it also contains grape and pear juice. My wife and I don't mind though, because we really like the taste. Nevertheless, because of this, I am not planning on adding any grape concentrate to add body, like many blackberry wine recipes recommend. I am planning on using an appropriate amount of pectic enzyme, but other than that, I am so far just planning on using the juice and sugar with Lalvin 71B-1122, which has worked well for fruit wines in the past. I am planning on using the traditional fortifying method, waiting until the wine has fermented to 10% and then adding brandy to 20% to stop fermentation. My questions are as follows:

1) Should I use the method I described above or should I just add sugar to enough gravity for 10% and then backsweeten after adding the brandy?

2) If I am interrupting the fermentation at 10%, what alcohol content should I aim for in the recipe? Should I add sugar so that the wine would be 12% or 15% if it were not interrupted? I know that this is largely a matter of how sweet I want the port to be at the end, but any advice as to achieving a traditional port sweetness would be helpful.

3) If I interrupt the fermentation at 10%, does anyone know of a good online calculator to calculate how much 80 proof brandy I would need to add to bring the wine from 10% to 20%? I know that I could do the math and somehow figure this out, but I would trust an online calculator better than my memory of how to dilute an emulsion.

4) Will I need to add acid blend to adjust the ph? I do not have a ph reader, so I don't know the ph of the juice, but many port recipes I read recommended adding acid to help with the high alcohol content.


Answers to any of these questions would be very helpful and thank you in advance!

Many thanks,
M4rotku

 

[M4rotku]

So far my recipe is looking as follows:

-4 46 oz. bottles of Farmer's Choice Blackberry Juice blend
-24 oz. Welch's Grape Juice Concentrate (for added body necessary for port)
- 3/4 tsp. Pectic Enzyme
- 1.5 tsp. Acid Blend
- Sugar to either 10% or higher amount, depending on what people advise.
- Yeast Nutrient
- Brandy (to fortify after fermentation)
- Hungarian Oak cubes
- Yeast: Lalvin 71B-1122


I still need to know (1) if I am using enough Acid Blend, (2) if I should aim for 10% or aim for higher (how higher?) and then stop fermentation at 10% by adding the Brandy, and (3) is there an easy way to calculate how much Brandy I should add?

This is definitely going to be an experiment. All of the blackberry port recipes I can find use actual blackberries, not juice. I wish I could get my hands on enough blackberries at a low enough price. I am going to try to compensate by adding the grape juice concentrate, but I don't know if that will be enough, along with the oak, to give it the necessary body. Once again, any and all advice is greatly welcome. Hopefully I will learn something from this and can share it with everyone else.

Many thanks,
M4rotku

 

[M4rotku]

Update: I found the kind of calculator that I need, to calculate how much brandy to add. Here is the link for anyone interested: http://www.winesathome.co.uk/downloads/calculator.htm

Based on my calculations, I am now thinking about maybe fermenting the wine to 15% instead of 10%, so as to reduce the amount of brandy I will need to add. Otherwise, the port would end up being over a third brandy.

 

[liquiditynerd]

I don't think I have an exact answer so much as I have questions. Are you using a hydrometer or refractometer to measure gravity? I don't know off hand how much fermentable sugars are in those juice and concentrates.

I'd say ferment the juice and concentrate and measure gravity along the way adding sugar if need be depending on the starting gravity for a stepped addition. When you hit your target Final Gravity, add the Bourbon to arrest fermentation. Sorry, isn't that Port in a nutshell?

 

[jensmith]

I have never done a port so take my advise acordingly!

Add just a pound or two of frozen blackberries to the primary. Or secendary for that matter. It will not be the same as using all fruit, but it will help round out your flavor profile to have even a few whole berries in there. You may want to add an extra half tsp peptic enzyme with them.

I would chose to up the abv to the 15% before adding the brandy. Also depending on flavor, I would backsweeten with more juice, find a concentrated one. Not sure if they make a blackberry one, so grape will do.

Depending of the yeast you use..... If 1118 then 15% abv plus leftover suger will be fine. If using a low abv tolerent yeast then watch for stressed yeast due to high starting sg and finnel abv. If you chose this type of yeast then I would either/both go with a 12%abv and mostly dry befor adding the brandy.

Blackberries are usually high in acid. Most store bought juices have been balanced or have had the acid redused. I would add acid to taste or not at all. Acid blend is easy enough to add at any time. Hard to take out however!!
I would not recamend adding extra acid blend at this point.

There is something called a parsons square for calulating additions of brandy. I have not used it and my spelling sucks, but you may be able to do a search here and find it

Good luck!


Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[M4rotku]

I am using a hydrometer to measure gravity, so I should be able to be decently accurate with my OG goal. Good idea with the frozen blackberries to round out the body. I will try to find some. I did not know that acid could be added during secondary to the same effect as primary, so I will probably wait until then to see if it is really needed. I would like to add the sugar via step additions, but I am not confident enough in my calculations of how much sugar in total needs to be added to bring the OG to 1.108 (14%, the max for my yeast).

I have been using this table to try to calculate the amount of sugar I will need to add. As far as I can tell from the table, I will need to subtract sugar amount listed for the gravity of the juice (in the "Sugar in Gal." column) from the sugar amount listed for the desired OG (in the "Sugar to Gal." column, estimating the volume reduction from some of the sugar having already been in the juice's volume to begin with) to get the amount of sugar I need to add to the must. Does that sound right? Because I don't trust my calculations, I think I might just add sugar until I reach a gravity of 1.108 and then let it ferment dry and then backsweeten.