What is an F-pac?

[BlueRidgeBilly]

I was reading about helping the outcome of apple cider wine and someone recommended an f-pac. Can anyone tell me what that is and at what point in the winemaking process is that introduced? Thanks for your imput.

 

[winemaker_3352]

Here is a sticky link that explains making an F-Pac.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7547

This is basically to bring some flavor to your wine once you have finished fermentation and stabilized your wine.

 

[Minnesotamaker]

I'm just guessing, but I think it stands for "Flavor Pack". In some wine ingredient kits, you get two bags of juice: one large one for initial fermentation and a smaller one that is added after fermentation is done. The second (smaller) bag is often referred to as an F-Pac. The contents of the F-Pac usually is comprised of a sweet flavored syrup.

 

[Godfather]

F Pack

I believe it stands for "Finishing Pack", but I like "Flavor Pack" better as mentioned in this thread. For us, this is where the fun of winemaking is, that is using your own creativity to flavor and sweeten your wine to your own tastes.

You can make your own by simmering fresh grape or friut juces down to a concentrate for a couple hours. Careful not to scortch the juce.

Or you can use ingredients you can buy at the wine store Example: Last year we made a wine we called "Blackberry Blush". We did a simple Blush Wine Kit, and when it was done and ready to bottle we made our own F Pack that consisted of 16oz red grape concentrate and 4oz blackberry wine/beer flavoring, which we purchased at the wine store. To that we added two ticks or what we call a tick (one tick=2cups sugar disolved in 1cup water) Of course add sorbate to prevent refermentation.

Of course to us making good wine is like making a good pot of chili. the best bowl of chili is the last bowl you heat up. And with wine the best bottle we drink is the last bottle of a good batch where we say "I wish I had another bottle of this'

This aged really well, and turned out better than we expected: semi sweet with good body and flavor.

 

[Cannew]

Saw a youtube where the person said he never uses all of the f-pack (and he added 2lbs of corn sugar to an Island Mist kit). Guess if you don't like sweet wines one may wish to cut back on the f-pack, but I liked it as is.

 

[mmadmikes1]

F pak is flavor pak. with apple it is the easiest of all, just go buy some frozen concentrate, thaw it and add it to wine. Fermenting will lessen the flavors when fermenting, you add the f-pak in to recover the flavor of the berry or fruit. Make sure wine is stable before adding it or you will just get more fermentation.

 

[Eyeguy]

F-PAC and Sweetners

Hi, All I will likely go a bit off topic but I have 2 questions:
1) Has anyone made their own F-Pac using a juice concentrate that is "sugar free" (ie it is sweetened with sucralose or similar). I was thinking of doing this to avoid ANY risk of refermentation (I would not add any sorbate with the pack). On this same note I may try and sweeten my Reisling-Gewurztraminer wine with only simple syrup to not alter its core flavor. But I wanted to make this simple syrup with something like Stevia for the same reason about.
2) I would like to make my dry Reisling-Gewurt wine into 3 batches. One left dry, one at 1% residual sugar (back-sweetened sugar), and one at 2.5% RS back-sweetened. Any idea on how to calculate this using Stevia? The sweetened carboys will be 2 gallons each.
Thanks