Some experience · 17.3 litres · Port style
Damson port style
Fermentation stopped halfway with neutral spirit, so half the sugar stays as sweetness and the alcohol lands near twenty per cent. Damsons have the acid and tannin to carry it, which is more than most garden fruit can say.
Starting sugar
23.7 Brix
3.91 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.100
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
1.040
sweet
Alcohol
19.5%
after fortification
Residual sugar
102 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
12 months
best around 10 years
Made to Port style, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
Fortifying at the right gravity, which you work out before you start rather than at the moment you need it. Once the spirit is in, the sweetness is fixed: there is no adjusting it back down without diluting everything else too.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damsons Stoned. Damson kernels carry amygdalin, and a wine fermented on crushed stones picks up more than a bitter almond note. | 5.00 kg | 0.50 kg | 2.25 L | 13% |
| White sugar | 3.00 kg | 3.00 kg | 1.89 L | 77% |
| Red grape concentrate Tannin and vinous background, which damsons alone do not supply. | 0.60 kg | 0.41 kg | 0.46 L | 10% |
| Pectic enzyme | 10 g | - | - | 0% |
| Yeast nutrient | 15 g | - | - | 0% |
| Water, to volume | - | - | 10.40 L | - |
The ingredients contribute 4.6 litres and the water makes up the rest to 15 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
7.5 g/L
at pH 3.35
No malolactic
7.5 g/L
the acidity you measure is the acidity you keep
Potassium bicarbonate
28 g
to reach 5.8 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
0.7 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 25 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.50
The batch
- Must volume
- 15 L
- Ferment at
- 20-24 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.5 mg/L
- Malolactic
- No
- Fortify at
- 1.040
- Spirit
- 2.29 L at 96%
- Final volume
- 17.29 L
- Yeast
- EC-1118to 18%, low N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Stone the damsons, freeze them to break the cell walls, then thaw into the fermenter.
- 02Add the sugar and concentrate, top up with water to volume, and stir until the sugar has completely dissolved.
- 03Add pectic enzyme and leave twelve hours before pitching. Hot must destroys the enzyme, so add it cold.
- 04Pitch and ferment on the pulp at 20 to 24C, punching down twice a day.
- 05Press after four days and continue in a carboy, taking gravity readings twice a day.
- 06At 1.040, rack off the lees and add the spirit in one go, stirring as you pour. Fermentation stops immediately.
- 07Age it. A year is the minimum and it keeps improving for a decade.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.