After some searching I’ve concluded that there doesn’t seem to be any good recipe for how to make a port. I’ve made my fair share of wines at home and thought I would bump up the challenge some. Does anybody have a good recipe for a port?!
Eh, the big challenge with port isn’t recipe, it’s process.
Basically, you need to carefully monitor your gravity during fermentation. Wait to hit a still sweet gravity in the range you want (say 1.030) and then blast the must with booze. High test everclear works well. If you want to be super traiditonaly it’s brandy.
It’s a little pricy but you could go with the wine expert port kit from a LHBS. Pricy but good!
Starts out with some pretty thick juice and when the gravity gets so low the directions have you add a pound of sugar. Turns out about 18-19% according to apparent attenuation. Not sure how accurate that is with an OG that high.
The trick is to use enough yeast and aerate well.
Fortifying and oak aging would seem pretty requisite. Sounds hard to do depending how patient, or how picky, you are. I bet one could get pretty close to one of those less expensive domestic ports that have things like “Great for Cooking!” derisively present on the label, but duplicating a good tawny or vintage port from Portugal is going to be tricky indeed. The kit may be a good bet, then fortifying with a youngish brandy and using some sort of mild oak product for aging.
Just an FYI. The kit comes with oak chips/dust that it has you add during primary fermentation. None is used for aging per the instructions…
As others point out, it is basically sweet wine with brandy added (which helps arrest the fermentation and aid preservaion; some cheaper ones also add sulphiting agents). These are the main elements of port, but another important one is time. Made right, the stuff will taste pretty good even when young, but will definitely get even better with some age.
Thanks! I think I’ll go with a more traditional brandy version with some oak chips for a little extra flavor…or if I mess up a bad flavor cover up!. Thanks all.
There’s a formula for fortifying wines, which revolves around the ‘Pearson Square’ as a means of calculating.
This seems to have most of the information you’d need
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/MakingPortWine.pdf
My LHBS carries an AMAZING chocolate raspberry or chocolate orange port (depending on the season)…
http://www.greatfermentations.com/Selection-Speciale-Chocolate-Raspberry-Port/productinfo/LR001/
http://www.greatfermentations.com/Cru-Select-Orange-Chocolate-Port/productinfo/LR004/