Making Port!
Actually, fortified wine! We can’t really call it port unless it is from Oporto!
Shahrokh and I decided to make port with some of the late harvest syrah.
We decided to make two 25 l carboys of port.
We need some alcohol…can’t buy grape spirits. Tim Pattersen in Home Winemaking for Dummies recommends Everclear, so I called Bottle Barn. They had it, but suggested Diesel as a cheaper alternative. Since both are 75% ethanol, not much difference.
We pulled juice from the ongoing ferment…22.5 l from each bin, at 7.5 brix on the hydrometer. With a starting brix of 28, that should correspond to 9.0 brix and 10.4% alc. The acids should be at the initial 4.8 g/l + 0.5 that we added = 5.3 g/l. We could be way off if the juice yield is way off, as I assumed 70 gallons of wine.
Here is the first blend calculation:
| Volume | sugar | alc | acid | |
| Juice | 22.5 l | 9.0 brix | 10.4% | 5.3 g/l |
| Diesel | 2.5 l | 0 brix | 75% | 0 g/l |
| Final | 25 l | 8.1 brix | 16.9% | 4.8 g/l |
Update Monday: The port is bubbling still!. So the alcohol of almost 17% did not kill the yeast. That is not completely surprising; port is normally near 20% alcohol. So Shahrokh racked the port off the gross lees. When done, he was short just a little more that 1 l per carboy. How convenient! So he added another liter of Diesel to each carboy, plus topped off with more juice.
Here is the second blend calculation:
| Volume | sugar | alc | acid | |
| Port | 24.0 l | 8.1 brix | 16.9% | 4.8 g/l |
| Diesel | 1.0 l | 0 brix | 75% | 0 g/l |
| Final | 25 l | 7.8 brix | 19.2% | 4.6 g/l |
That should do it until we can get all the numbers tested and see where we are at!
Also added 70 ppm sulphites…70ppm @ 6.6 gallon = 30 mL 10% SO2 solution
It will definitely need more acidity…probably another 2g/l! And maybe more sugar.
The plan is to put it into the 50 l oak barrel we have in the cellar. It will benefit greatly from time in a barrel.