Blackberry and elderberry port

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

The Goatreich

Landlord.
Joined
Sep 30, 2011
Messages
1,221
Reaction score
4
Location
Newport, South Wales
Hi all,
I'm looking to make a port similar to GA's Damson port posted in here viewtopic.php?f=40&t=18096

The thing is I don't have damsons.

I do have blackberries (around 1kg I think) and elderberries (possibly a kilo or more, need to weight them when defrosted), plus GV2 and GV4 yeast. Can anyone recommend a recipe please? I'm no good at calculating sugar additions etc.

Also, GA mentions pectinase, I have pectolase, is this a different thing?

I'll update the post when I know exact quantities of what I have when they've defrosted, and I've destalked the elderberries (how fussy do I need to be with that by the way? Get every last bit of wood off? If so, then DAAAAAAMN!).
 
Can't help with a recipe but pectinase and pectolase I believe are the same and yes all stalks must be removed as I believe they will make your brew bitter.
Hope this is of some help.
 
I've got an Elderberry and Blackberry wine on the go at the moment. I'm going to keep half of it as wine and I'm going to fortify the other half with Brandy.

1.5kg Elderberry's
0.5kg Blackberry's
1kg Sugar
1 Tsp Citric Acid
1 Tsp Yeast Nutrient
1/2 Tsp Tannin
1 Tsp Pectolase
1/4 Tsp Epsom or Andrews Salts
1 Campden Tablet
1 Tsp Youngs Super Wine Yeast Compound

First you need to freeze the berries for a couple of days, then put the berries into a stock pot or bucket and leave them to thaw.
Crush the berries with a potato masher and pour the 1kg of sugar over the juice and pulp. Pour 2 litres of boiling water over the berries and stir well. Leave to cool a little.
With a little warm water in a jug dissolve 1 crushed Campden Tablet, yeast nutrient, Tannin, Pectolase and Epsom/Andrews Salts.
Pour this mixture into the must and stir. Leave for at least 24 hours and the add your Yeast starter.
Ferment on the pulp for 5 to 7 days and then strain the must into a demi john and top up to the shoulder of the DJ with Red Grape Juice.
Ferment to 1.010 then rack it into a cean sanitised DJ and leave it to finish fermenting, this usually takes around 4 weeks.
 
That sounds really good. I have some recipes from robwalker too so have some to go on. I wonder with the above recipe whether I could use 1kg of blackberries and 2kg of elder to up the fruit content and use gv4.

Lots to think about, must be careful not to overthink it.
 
This is the beauty of home brewing, inventing or ajusting recipes makes this hobby really interesting. All you need is the basics and away you go.

If you are fortifying your wine, it will take 900ml of brandy to fortify 2.25 litres of 12% abv of wine to 20%abv port
 
I think I might have asked this before, so apologies if so, but how can I work out the percentage of this? I will be using GV4 yeast, so it has a potential to go quite high, but ideally I'd like it to be around the 20% mark. Will I need to step feed it sugar?
 
I sometimes make a white port and use Gervin V4 yeats. Even though they claim to be in the high %ABV range, I would really prefer to step feed your must. Unless your are fortifying this wine ,I think a good few months aging is recormended.
 
OK this is the recipe I'm going to try:

2 gallons:
2kg elderberries (by god these were a nightmare to destalk!!!!! I must admit I wasn't too fussy towards the end).
1.5kg blackberries
2.5kg mixed frozen fruit from Tesco (mixed blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants)
1kg raisins
2tsp pectolase
2kg sugar
2 packets of Gervin GV4 yeast.

I have all the fruit defrosting in a bucket at the moment. Tomorrow I'll pour some boiling water over the top and add 2CT 2tsp of pectolase and mash everything up with a potato masher. The next day I'll add the sugar and yeast and ferment on the pulp for a week, then rack off through muslin to 2 DJs, and top up with red grape juice if needs be, and ferment to dry. Once again, rack off, stabilise and leave to mature for several months, then backsweeten before bottling. No idea how to back sweeten with though :s

Does that sound ok? Should I wait to add the sugar and slowly add it over a period of weeks?
How much boiling water should I pour over at the start? I don't want to end up with too much liquid.

Thanks for all your help and advice guys.
 
Is there a way I can reasonably estimate the ABV of this? I guess it'll be hard to measure with a hydrometer as some sugar will still be in the fruit at the beginning, and if I do step feed the sugar in, what's the best way?
 
I never bother but you can work out the amount of sugar in the fruit from tables which i don't have and thus the starting gravity. Moley is your man for that.

3kg of fruit per gallon is about right, but you do need this level of fruit in order to get the flavour and the body anything less even fortifying won't give you what you want IMHO.

Pectolase and pectinase are the same :thumb:
 
Elderberries have a sugar content of approx. 11.5% by weight, blackberries 7% and raisins 70%.

I'll guess at 10% for your frozen fruits, but you could probably read that off the packet.

So that's 230 + 105 + 700 + 250 = 1285g sugar in your fruits.

That's quite enough to keep those yeasties happy for a week, so don't add any more sugar to the bucket.

Add boiling water almost to the 2 gallon mark.

After a week, strain out as much pulp as you can but throw it into a second bucket with around 6 pints of cold water so you can get another gallon of lighter wine.

Guestimating 90% extraction from your fruits gives 1150g and you're planning on adding another 2kg.

3150g sugar in 2 gallons (9 litres) = 350g sugar in the litre which would give an OG of 1.126 and around 18% alcohol.
 
Moley has just posted to step feed. I don't I mash up fruit and dissolve sugar in the minimum amount of boiliong water (usually on the stove in a pan) then add to the fruit with a campden tablet and leave 24 hrs. Then pitch yeast. After a week I strain it all squeezing all the juice out of the fruit into D'J's. Then wash the fruit again in some boiling water strain allow to cool and then top up the DJ's. It will ferment vigourous at first and then plod along for a few months by which time when it has finished fermenting I rack, stabalise and keep under airlock for a year before bottling. On bottling I usually sweeten with demerara sugar.
 
I have just made some with my two boys 8 and 10. These will not be touched until their 18th birthdays in 8 and 10 yrs time :grin: :grin:

My youngest did say that he may not like it and didn't want to make some. I told him he may have a different view in 10 yrs time. :lol: :lol:
 
graysalchemy said:
Moley has just posted to step feed.
Not really, I merely suggested not putting all of the sugar into the bucket with the fruit as you would then be straining quite a lot of it out again, although that would be reduced by rinsing the pulp, or wouldn't matter so much if you were re-using that pulp.

I would then add the rest of the sugar (boiled to a syrup and cooled) after straining, still leaving the volume short of the required total, and then probably top up with red grape juice when the risk of overflowing had passed.


Regarding back-sweetening, it takes 28g of sugar to sweeten 1 litre by 10 gravity points, e.g. 0.990 back to 1.000
 
Moley said:
graysalchemy said:
Moley has just posted to step feed.
Not really, I merely suggested not putting all of the sugar into the bucket with the fruit as you would then be straining quite a lot of it out again, although that would be reduced by rinsing the pulp, or wouldn't matter so much if you were re-using that pulp.

I would then add the rest of the sugar (boiled to a syrup and cooled) after straining, still leaving the volume short of the required total, and then probably top up with red grape juice when the risk of overflowing had passed.


Regarding back-sweetening, it takes 28g of sugar to sweeten 1 litre by 10 gravity points, e.g. 0.990 back to 1.000

Get you Moley :thumb:
 
Back
Top