Tweaking Kits w/frozen must packs

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ou8amaus

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I have almost strictly done kit wines in the past, apart from a growing stock of db (up next is blueberry, very excited). My results since joining this site have improved remarkably (aiop, aging, various tweaks... etc) Your feedback/knowledge has always been amazing, and so I seek it again. This summer I bought a lug of merlot grapes, had them crushed and de-stemmed, and then I froze them in 6x 6lbs freezer Ziploc. My plan was to add 1 bag to a low end kit and see what changes it would bring. I am hoping for a little more body, more tannins, more complexity, and a reduction of kt. My question is how best to proceed? Do I thaw the fpack in the fridge and then add it, or should o add it directly the the reconstituted jus and then either pitch the yeast or wait 24 hours before pitching? I would like to keep the fpack in the primary for as long as safely possible to maximize extraction, and I plan on running a control batch side by side. My real hope is that this shows enough promise that I take it to the next level and try it with mid range kits. Sorry for being so long winded... so has anyone tried this, does anyone have any suggestions ? As always your comments are really appreciated!

Sent from my LG-D801 using Wine Making mobile app
 
Joeswine does a lot of kit tweaking. He did one using a WE cab kit this month and he used Corinthian grapes that he froze. This is a summary of what he did. You can read back farther in the thread to get more of the details but this is a recap.

Joeswine cab tweak

Hope it helps.
 
Joeswine does a lot of kit tweaking. He did one using a WE cab kit this month and he used Corinthian grapes that he froze. This is a summary of what he did. You can read back farther in the thread to get more of the details but this is a recap.

Joeswine cab tweak

Hope it helps.

Thank you for the link, I thought I had gone through all of Joe's threads but tomorrow I will tackle that one and absorb. Thank you!
 
Joeswine does a lot of kit tweaking. He did one using a WE cab kit this month and he used Corinthian grapes that he froze. This is a summary of what he did. You can read back farther in the thread to get more of the details but this is a recap.

Joeswine cab tweak

Hope it helps.


Hi I wanted to see if you could send that link again. It doesn't work when I try to click on it.
 
My LHBS sells what you're calling an F-pack, I think they call it something like frozen must pack. They sell it for $12.00 US. I was speaking with co-owner Mark just a few days ago about his packs and he mentioned some of the same benefits that you mentioned. He suggested his packs be thawed, put into a cheese cloth bag and put it into primary much like you would a grape skin pack from say an RJS WS kit. I would squeeze once or twice a day while in primary and then remove pack @ around 1.020 and rack to "secondary" to finish fermentation.
 
bkisel is right, what you are making is not an F-pack, it is just a frozen must package. An F-pack is generally made by reducing down juice on the stove to concentrate the flavors and sugars. Like he says just thaw it out and place in a fermentation bags of cheesecloth or similar. It is like placin it in the must, but easier to remove later and allows the benefits of tannins, etc you seek.
 
I stand corrected, not sure why I used the term f-pack, as I have used f-packs in the past with libfraumilch style wines. OK, thaw must package, place in nylon porous container (stockings!) And add to reconstituted kit. Squeeze daily like Dragon Blood until fermentation clears 1.02.... great, thank you so much for the help.

Sent from my LG-D801 using Wine Making mobile app
 
Is there a way to edit a threads title so I can change fpack to frozen must package?
 
bkisel is right, what you are making is not an F-pack, it is just a frozen must package. An F-pack is generally made by reducing down juice on the stove to concentrate the flavors and sugars. Like he says just thaw it out and place in a fermentation bags of cheesecloth or similar. It is like placin it in the must, but easier to remove later and allows the benefits of tannins, etc you seek.

Reduction of liquid through evaporation is the way that everyone here seems to create an F-pack but I wonder whether there might be benefits to reducing the water content by... freezing. If I freeze a jug of juice and allow it to begin to thaw then the FIRST liquid that thaws seems to have far higher concentrations of the fruit (much like cold distillation). The juice still frozen contains now a greater percentage of the water and less fruit.
Is there no benefit in concentrating by freezing rather than by heating after all, the freezer is always on but you need to use additional energy to evaporate, and there is no possibility of creating a pectic haze because of the high temperatures used.

I was planning in the coming week to do an experiment with cranberry juice and apple juice- to measure the gravity before freezing and then compare the gravity of the juices after freezing and drawing out the first thawed juice. Has anyone tried this? Is this worthwhile to consider?
 
bkisel is right, what you are making is not an F-pack, it is just a frozen must package. An F-pack is generally made by reducing down juice on the stove to concentrate the flavors and sugars. Like he says just thaw it out and place in a fermentation bags of cheesecloth or similar. It is like placin it in the must, but easier to remove later and allows the benefits of tannins, etc you seek.

Looking for info on f packs, but can't seem to find much.
If you make your own, when do you add it, primary or secondary?
I read in a post, use 2 lbs fruit per gallon of wine. Does that sound about right?
Lastly, what do you add with it,.does it need any pectic enzyme our anything to helpwith clearing?

Just interested in trying this in the future to add flavor, but I need more info first.
Thank you!
Rosa
 
if i want to add an fpack..i take about 4 lbs of fruit with about 1 1/2 cups water and simmer on stove for about 1 hour , reducing it to a concentrated juice, then cool and add to wine after its cleared and free of sediment, reducing the chance of refermentation if there is a lot of sugar in the juice.
If you add sorbate at that time it reduces the risk more.
If i want to add fpack and sweeten i add 2 cups of sugar to the juice and cut water to 1/2 cup and reduce down.
 
if i want to add an fpack..i take about 4 lbs of fruit with about 1 1/2 cups water and simmer on stove for about 1 hour , reducing it to a concentrated juice, then cool and add to wine after its cleared and free of sediment, reducing the chance of refermentation if there is a lot of sugar in the juice.
If you add sorbate at that time it reduces the risk more.
If i want to add fpack and sweeten i add 2 cups of sugar to the juice and cut water to 1/2 cup and reduce down.

Awesome! Thank you :)
I have one batch of triple berry skeeter pee/Dragons Blood done. While GOOD it's low on fruit flavor. And I want to up the fruit at the start, but also thought maybe an Fpack at sweetening would add some more color/flavor....
I'm never afraid to experiment, but I hate to waste a whole batch of wine!!! :)
 
P.S. Feel free to tell me when I've missed something HUGE! haha Just on the site, reading up, learning.....
Came across the great big F-Pack Sticky that should have smacked me in the face earlier! :slp

Don't know why it didn't come up in my search.....
 
Rosa, make sure you add k-meta and sorbate before backsweetening. You should always do this or you can be taking a chance of having a re-fermentation.
 
Rosa, make sure you add k-meta and sorbate before backsweetening. You should always do this or you can be taking a chance of having a re-fermentation.

Thanks, Julie! I will be sure to add that prior.
Is that all you need to add before an f pack?
 
Rosa, I usually squeeze a lemon slice over the Skeeter Pee if I want more flavor as recommended by this thread.

Ooooh.......... Interesting!!! I've yet to make traditional skeeter pee. I've only made two batches of berry skeeter pee. But I LOVE lemon, so I will have to give this a shot sometime. Thanks!!!!
 
My plan was to add 1 bag to a low end kit and see what changes it would bring. I am hoping for a little more body, more tannins, more complexity, and a reduction of kt.

As previous posters mentioned, put your thawed "grape pack" in a muslin bag and squeeze 1-2 times daily. I don't see any reason not to leave it in there until 1.000 (as CC Showcase instructions advise for their red kits with grape packs) for maximum extraction. Are you planning on 1 or 2 six pound "grape packs" per kit? I'm a sucker for back-to-back tests. I'd be interested to try this too. Please keep us posted!!
 
Update… So I started with a double kit of Costco’s Chateau Cabernet Sauvignon. I re-hydrated the kit to 23 liters and into one kit I added 6lbs of thawed, crushed, merlot grape must. I followed directions and fermented until almost dry, squeezing the must bag daily. I racked into a carboy and added 1 tbsp tannin and about 1 cup of med toasted ok to both. I let it sit there for a couple of weeks before I racked and filtered and bottled. After three weeks in the bottle I can report my early findings.

The wine with the grape must pack is significantly darker. It also has a much stronger smell of grape with a slight vegetal smell, reminds me of a forest after rain. Not unpleasant. It has about the same amount of KT and a hint of yeast flavor. Wine has more body than the control batch, hard to quantify but say 15-20% more body. Significant but not wow. It is also a little more acidic than the control batch. More tannin, but not as much as I expected. Overall this was one of the better tweaks I have done, the wine tastes extremely young but it is much better than the stock version. I believe the few faults I did noticed can be minimized with a few slight changes.

This is an inexpensive kit which I traditionally would not age. I use it for quick drinking (great for sangria) while I wait for the big kits to age. That being said I believe the next time I use a must package I will do things a little different. I am going to try adding the must to the primary and then topping up the kit to 23 liters to concentrate the flavours more, and I will also try adding 2x 6lb must packs. I also think the addition of the must makes this wine need more time bulk aging, perhaps 3-6 months in the carboy. A little back sweetening should help the extra acidity, or perhaps aging will help that? I am holding onto half the bottle so I report back in a few months.
 

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