Blackberry port and how to extract juices

I am planning to make a blackberry port soon. I'm trying to keep the berry taste in the final result, which I think means using more fruit than for a regular wine. It's going to be a dessert wine for friends. I'm hoping to have it ready fairly young, and wanted to know what I should do to extract the juices.

The plan here is to use 10 pounds of berries per gallon. I want to halt fermentation while it's still fairly thick and sweet--perhaps

1.045--with the addition of sherry until ABV is 22%. With the additional berries, I'm trying to anticipate the amount of sherry I might need. Specifically, I am trying to gauge my OG.

How many gravity points can I expect per pound of berries per gallon?

Also, I'm trying to determine how to extract the juice without too many tannins. I don't see this lasting many years and thus don't want to wait that long to even get there. My first effort with real fruit was a cranberry wine that I squished by hand after a primary fermentation. I see recipes that involve crushing before pitching yeast.

I don't have a press, so my plan right now is stuff the berries in nylon bags, and seep with boiling water. When cooled, pitch yeast for primary fermentation. Note that I'll put in some additives like some citric acid, but that's not my primary concern. Near the closing gravit I want, I plan to lightly squish the berries. There's this thing at the homebrew store for pushing floating berries down that I think would work. I'd add some pectic enzyme afterwards. The squishing would be light.

I'm hoping for some tips before I go all out on this because I'm looking at 50 pounds of blackberries, which isn't necessarily cheap. That and my cranberry wine is extremely bitter and will take a long time to age. I don't want to see that with this port.

Reply to
Adam Preble
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When I make plum wine from freshly picked Chilton County plums, I use short bursts on a blender to chop the fruit. With blackberries, I place them in a straining bag, drop them into the primary, and crush them to release the juice. I use my hands to crush and squeze, but you could use anything, really.

A crusher would be a LOT easier, but I have to work with what I've got. And it works.

Reply to
Matthew Givens

When I use berries I usually freeze them first it helps to break them down and extract the juices better

Reply to
Walter Venables

Adam - I suggest going to Lum's site

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Look at his berry port recipe and method under fruit wines. This looks like a good way to make port-style wines. I made a Baco Noir port two years ago. I used Everclear grain alcohol and very cold temperature to stop fermentation. The wine is still bulk aging and has retained an alcoholic flavor I don't care for. You may have the same problem using sherry to bulk up the alcohol and I would consider brandy in lieu of sherry if you do use spirits to increase alcohol. I would consider keeping the bananas in the recipe to add body to the wine.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA

Reply to
William Frazier

I second the suggestion to use brandy (high proof if you can get it) or everclear instead of sherry. It will take a LOT of sherry to get the alcohol up and it will influence the taste too much.

Reply to
miker

I made a blueberry port earlier this year. My suggestions would be to first use twice as much fruit per gallon as you would for a normal fruit wine (Jack keller reccomends 6 lbs per gallon instead of 10). Be carefull though. In my recipie I used fresh fruit for both the blueberry and elderberry and it became hard to get enough fruit per gallon to make the wine (when considering the additions of sugar needed)

second, add sugar to the fermentation to top out natural alcohol production. You will hankyour self later when you only have to add half a liter of brandy instead of 4 liters of brandy.

Use brandy. Do not use unflavored spirit, like everclear. It boosts the alcohol enough, but it tends to make the wine taste like a mixed drink instead of a port. Brandy has the je ne se quois needed to make it taste right. Use a pearsons square to determine how much to add.

You may think that you do not want the tannin in there. But with all that alcohol and sugar, you will be glad if you let some the the tannin get extracted. Otherwise you may find the wine tastinig a bit insipid.

I would let the fruit ferment out fairly well and then just set the fruit bag in a colander and lightly press out the remaining juice. Well actually i would press it out with a sausage press, but I have that luxury.

Adam Preble wrote:

Reply to
Droopy

That's interesting. I was looking at a recipe on there for 5 gallons and doubled that. On the one hand, I'm not looking forward to getting

50 pounds of berries. OTOH it would be a good time to try second runnings.

There's a farm an hour and a half away with blackberries. They don't think they'll freely have that capacity for sale this weekend, but they should be ready next weekend.

OK I had forgotten about brandy, and others are mentioning it. I wasn't fixated on sherry or anything.

I just don't want to wait too long for this to be ready. That as, I'd like something passable 2 months after bottle, and perhaps have something for the holidays.

Reply to
Adam Preble

Miker,

Would you use a flavored brandy (most of these are fairly sweet) or a 'regular' brandy?

Cheers, Ken

Reply to
mail box

That is interesting. If you look in his requested recipies he has his blackberry port recipe there.

I do not think you will have a problem with it being to tannic to drink young. More likely you will find that the flavors are not integrated well and overly harsh. You will notice it being sweet and alcoholic, but not sweetly alcoholic.

And as another poster asked, you want to use real brandy, not flavored brandy. In fact, the young port may taste like one of the cheaper flavored brandies. But it will get soooo good.

Reply to
Droopy

Adam:

I don't know how much gravity per lb you'll get but I would advise not to add citric acid to the must. Blackberries are naturally acidic even though they taste sweet. I made a batch of blackberry wine last summer (still aging) and it's tasting a bit tart too. I ended up adding a bunch of sugar to increase the Brix and balance. Pectic enzyme is a good idea as it helps break down the berries. Straining is preferred to crushing with a crusher too--I tried both and the crusher just didn't cooperate. Sounds like you've got it figured out. Have fun! The port sounds like a good idea.....

Adam Preble wrote:

Reply to
Nick

Try to get the highest proof brandy you can and no, not flavored brandy, you don't want the fortifier to influence the flavor of the port. If you have access to a winery that makes port perhaps you can obtain some high proof brandy through them. In most cases its probably not legal for them to sell it to you, but see what you can work out.

Reply to
miker

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