Wine from F packs

Xoloski · Feb 17, 2021

Hi All,
I have a collection of partially used F packs from previous wine kits. I never use the entire F pack as it adds too much sweetness to the final product.
My question is has anybody successfully used F packs with water with added sugar, enough to get the SG up to the requisite level, to make a wine of sorts?
I hate to see the F packs go to waste...
Thanks!
Steve in southeast Arizona.

beano · Feb 17, 2021

@Xoloski Steve, this sounds like a stellar idea. I don't make grape wines or kit wines, but will commonly clean out the freezer and make a mixed fruit wine. Using f-packs would be much the same to me. I think it also would depend on what the f-pac consists of so I will digress to a more knowledgeable member of the Forum. Gut instincts say go for it. Worst case, it sucks. Best case, a great wine you can never duplicate.

cmason1957 · Feb 17, 2021

I seem to recall somewhere reading that the F-Packs generally have potassium sorbate added to them. Now that might be a hallucination remembrance.

sour_grapes · Feb 17, 2021

I have added a fraction of the f-pack to the primary fermenter when doing a kit with an F-pack.

Rice_Guy · Feb 17, 2021

There is no reason not to ferment it out, some of us who don’t read directions do it all the time. This said I have not run numbers to check pH so it is worth while checking if it is between 3.2 and 3.5.
,,, The kits I have looked into have separate small bags with the K sorbate (moisture starts it to react) it should not be in the flavor pouch.

winemaker81 · Feb 18, 2021

This sounds like a good experiment. How much volume of F-packs do you have in total?

F-packs are for flavoring, so may not have the basic taste and body as they are adjuncts for a wine. You might start a fruit wine, e.g., buy large bags of frozen mixed berries, and make up enough for a 3 or 5 gallon batch, e.g., 3 gallons water + 15-18 lbs berries OR 5 gallons water + 25-30 lbs berries. Add the F-packs, stir well, then adjust the brix.

It's gonna be a Frankenwine, but that's ok! Sweeten slightly (or a lot) and it's an interesting summer sipper or Sangria.

ehlen5 · Feb 18, 2021

Some, maybe all, f parks have flavoring in addition to sugar. In the past when I added the f Pak as directed the wine tended to be sweeter than I liked. A few years ago I just added the f Pak as part of the water addition and still usually had to add sugar to get the SG up to around 1.095 my preferred starting SG. I’ve never had a problem with fermentation and I’m happy with the wine.