Packlab Help figuring ABV on port?

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NashChic

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I'm doing a Diamanti Dark Chocolate Orange Port kit. I think it's a Paklab kit (it's listed on the Paklab website), but I don't actually see "Paklab" anywhere. It says "Advintage." Sorry if this post isn't in the right place :)

My question(s) is... I don't know the volume of the wine from the "larger" juice bag. I know that it is 16.5% ABV and it's not filling my 3gal better bottle. I also can't find anything that says what the volume of the f-pack is. I'm also planning to fortify with 750ml of E&J VSOP brandy that is 40% ABV. So does anyone have any ideas how to find the volume of what's currently in my carboy (at 16.5%) and the volume of the f-pack?

Any suggestions?
 
Yep, I have a way. But it relies on your ability to accurately measure an object.

If you give me the sg and the weight or mass of wine in the carboy I could figure out its volume.

Same thing for the fpack. Afterwords, I can show you how its done if you are interested.

However, I need accurate weights or masses.
 
Yep, I have a way. But it relies on your ability to accurately measure an object.

If you give me the sg and the weight or mass of wine in the carboy I could figure out its volume.

Same thing for the fpack. Afterwords, I can show you how its done if you are interested.

However, I need accurate weights or masses.

Yep, it can get a little complicated, since you have to take the volume of the F pack and any extra liquid you add into consideration. As Seth said, if you know the volumes, though, it can be done.
 
Thanks so much for offering to help!

The wine in the better bottle weighs 22.4 lbs. That includes the weight of the better bottle without a bung/airlock. The better bottle isn't very heavy though, and I'm not too concerned if the calculations are skewed a bit by it. The Fpack weighs 5.8 lbs.

I don't know what the mass is. It looked like you needed either the weight or the mass, so hopefully weight alone is enough.

Thanks again!!
 
Also just read that you need the SG of the wine... It's 0.996 at 70.3F. I'll have to get the fpack into something to check it...
 
Since I needed to move the f-pack to a container to take the SG, I just measured it as I went. It's just shy of 2 1/8 liters, or about 2.12L. I tried to get the SG, but it's so high it's off my hydrometer!

Btw, this stuff smells so good I could cut open the bag & lick the residue. Lol :D
 
The f-pack is more than 1/2 a gallon? That seems massive to me. If you have the volume of your f-pack though, and the ABV and volume of your wine (since you have the vol and ABV of the brandy), that is all you need to calculate. SG is not needed for anything once you know the ABV of your wine, as you will not be fermenting anymore.
 
So in short, you could use the following info to figure this:

ABV of finished wine: 16.5% I believe
Vol of finished wine:
ABV of f-pack: 0%
Vol of f-pack:
ABV of fortifier: 40%
Vol of fortifier: 750 mL
 
If you have everything except for the volume of finished wine, you could always just temporarily transfer the 3G into some smaller carboys to measure it - or add water in another 3G up to the same level and measure that amount. I believe Seth has another way of doing things, but not sure how, as mass would be problematic in my estimation.
 
I measured water to the same level as the wine was after transfer. The volume of the 16.5% abv wine is 9.25L

So...
9.25L at 16.5%
2.12L at 0%
750ml (0.75L) at 40%

So what's that give me if I add all of the brandy?
 
So I did it in 2 steps -

First with the addition of the f-pack to the finished wine, I got a final abv of 13.4234%

Then the addition of 750 mL brandy to that, resulted in a final abv of 15.0679% for 12.12 liters.
 
The huge f-pack brings the abv down a lot. Is the f-pack really 20-25% of the volume of the wine itself? That seems incredible to me.
 
That's what I measured it as. But that does seem a lot. I emailed the company this morning to see if they would send me the volumes of the juice bag & the f-pack so I could figure the ABV. They didn't send me the volumes, but they did tell me that based on my starting & final SGs my ABV after the fpack should be 15% (without the brandy). So maybe my measurements were wrong, or the container I measured in wasn't true to size.

Edited to add: Thank you so much for those calculations!! Much appreciated :)
 
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That might not be a whole lot off then. The volume of wine you had was a bit low, considering. 9.25 liters out of an 11.625 liter kit is a 20% loss in volume. You expect some losses to racking for sure, but that seems a bit on the high end.

However, after doing another calculation, it looks like even assuming a full 3 gallons, adding that volume of f-pack would only have brought you to 13.95%, still a full % under what they claim you'd get. Hmm... I suppose you might get there if they assume that it fermented slightly lower, but 0.996 is pretty darn dry.

You could try taking the container you measured in and doing the same thing with water in smaller carboys to double-check the measurements. I'm willing to bet that the f-pack calculation might be a bit high, but there are always a good number of chances at error in winemaking :)

Happy to help!
 
I'm doing a Diamanti Dark Chocolate Orange Port kit. I think it's a Paklab kit (it's listed on the Paklab website), but I don't actually see "Paklab" anywhere. It says "Advintage." Sorry if this post isn't in the right place :)

My question(s) is... I don't know the volume of the wine from the "larger" juice bag. I know that it is 16.5% ABV and it's not filling my 3gal better bottle. I also can't find anything that says what the volume of the f-pack is. I'm also planning to fortify with 750ml of E&J VSOP brandy that is 40% ABV. So does anyone have any ideas how to find the volume of what's currently in my carboy (at 16.5%) and the volume of the f-pack?

Any suggestions?


1) Figure out your density

Ok here is what I did. I took your sg of .996. This corresponds to a density of .996 g/cm^3 which is the same as .996 g/ml

2) divide your mass of wine by the density of wine.
2 A) I approximated 20lbs to make up for the better bottle. I then took your 20 lbs of weight and put it into units of mass ie grams.
I came up with 9071.85 grams of wine.

2 B) Divide 9071.85 grams by .996 g/ml to get 9108.28 ml of wine or around 9.1 liters

3) account for dilution and fortification.

ABV= Total Alcohol volume/ Total volume

Total alcohol Volume= 9.1 L* (.165) +2.12 L*(.0) +.750L *(.40)= 1.8 Liters alcohol

Ie sum up all of your volumes multiplied by their abv fraction

Total Volume= 9.1+2.12+.750= 11.97 L

This is simply just your total volume.


1.8/11.97=.1503=15% ABV

And the result of plugging it into the above equation is listed above.

Pretty clear? One thing you might want to check on is the actual volume of your F pack. It does seem kinda big.
 
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Thank you, Seth. That actually does make sense. Appreciate the help!

Just read your thread about the black currant port a couple of days ago. Congrats & I hope it does well at competition! I might give something like that a shot someday. It sounds yummy :)
 
Thank you, Seth. That actually does make sense. Appreciate the help!

Just read your thread about the black currant port a couple of days ago. Congrats & I hope it does well at competition! I might give something like that a shot someday. It sounds yummy :)

Glad to hear it made sense to you and I always enjoy it when people are able to make use of it.

It is also nice to hear when people read one of your own project threads, I also hope it does well in competition, but this being my first wine I have ever entered into competition I realize it is always good to manage your expectations.

However, I would recommenced you try making a "port" they are fun to make and in my opinion leave a rather large amount of room for creativity.
 
This has been my favorite kit to date that I've made. From opening the bag the smell is awesome. It was good enough to buy 2 more so I can do a double batch next time. I finished mine with 3/4 bottle of brandy. I think it is about 17% so you're pretty close.
 

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