How much apple concentrate to back sweeten apple port?

[Shred]

I'm experimenting with a cider kit which contained enough liquid apple juice concentrate to make 6 gallons of hard cider.

I cut the dilution in half to make 3 gallons of ~10% apple wine and will be fortifying with brandy.

Obviously, the concentrate has fermented out too dry for a port so I intend to back sweeten with frozen apple juice concentrate (after sorbating, of course). I have limited wine making experience and zero back sweetening experience.

Can anyone offer some approximations or starting points?

Thanks!

 

[Jacob_Marley]

I'm experimenting with a cider kit which contained enough liquid apple juice concentrate to make 6 gallons of hard cider.

I cut the dilution in half to make 3 gallons of ~10% apple wine and will be fortifying with brandy.

Obviously, the concentrate has fermented out too dry for a port so I intend to back sweeten with frozen apple juice concentrate (after sorbating, of course). I have limited wine making experience and zero back sweetening experience.

Can anyone offer some approximations or starting points?

Thanks!

Really it's done to taste.
In part, the residual acidity has something to do with the final desired amount of backsweetening ... as do the other flavor components such as tannins, the fortification, and the aging process.
For the main fortified wine I make, which is Green Ginger Wine, I've had good results from letting the fortified product sit in bulk aging for a couple months to let a bit of maturation occur and then backsweetening etc to the desired taste after that. Though in your case I'm sure backsweetening now will be fine.

Anyhow ...

For sweetness taste testing ...
Get 6 glasses and *label* them 1 thru 6.
Put 4 oz of wine in one as the taste control. (Write down that glass 1 has 0 sugar etc).
In the remaining glasses put 4 oz wine portions to which you will add varying amounts of sweetening ... FCAJ ... Sugar ... whathaveyou.

You can start with the equivalent amount of sweetness that 1/2 teaspoon sugar would provide.

For your starting points the *approximate* starting equivalents would be ... 0.5 tea sugar = 0.4 tea honey = 0.7 tea FCAJ. (these are very approximate)

In general, make graduations up and down from that in the remainder of the glasses and keep good tasting notes while you sample one verses another.

Scaling up to a gallon or gallons is then just simple math.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

one other note ... make sure to add the fortification before determining the level of backsweetening.

 

[Shred]

Yep. Made the fortification calculation last night. I'll be adding the brandy with the oak later this week. Thanks again!

 

[Shred]

For those who are interested, I figured I report back.

I got my apple port where I want it using 2 full frozen apple concentrate cans and 3 ounces of dark brown sugar. Sounds like a lot of sugar but, for a port it's really not cloyingly sweet. The acid from the apples and bite from the brandy help to balance it.

The 3 gallon batch (10% ABV before fortification) was fortified with 51 ounces of brandy bringing it up to about 14%. The whole batch is aging over French oak now.

Yum!

 

[schwiz]

fortified cider is called royal cider which sounds better than apple port imo

 

[Shred]

Did not know that. Thanks!