Skeeter Pee, Green Tea, and Honey - Green Skeeter Pee'd?

[Affe]

I'm wanting to make a triple-crossover here -- Lemon + Tea for an Arnold Palmer - like flavoring, green tea + honey for the herbal effect, and of course the honey makes it a mead.

Okay, after looking over some other mead recipes and a few other threads on some unnamed website that specifically caters to meads, I have the following:

• 21 lbs of Honey
• 5 gallons of green tea, cold steeped (cold steeped key, prevent bitterness!)
• 2 teaspoons of yeast nutrient
• 2 teaspoons of yeast energizer
• 2 - 3 bottles of Real Lemon (third bottle to taste)
• 2 packets of Lalvin 71b-1122 yeast (or suitable replacement)
• Bentonite to help clear, super-kleer if needed later
• Kmeta or Campden tabs
• Potassium Sorbate

I have pasteur red and moncharet yeast, for red wines -- will these work okay or should I go with the Lalvin mentioned here? I'm curious how big of a difference this may make, as many pees are made from slurry (which could be just about any kind of yeast).

I plan to start the tea tonight, at least give the tea time to set as well as some time for the campden tabs to do their work and evaporate off. After that, I'll add in the honey and other ingredients, saving the yeast culture for last. I'll be sure to update this thread.

Am I missing anything? Does this idea appear to be sound?

 

[Devo9]

Don't Real Lemon products contain potassium sorbate?

 

[Arne]

Don't Real Lemon products contain potassium sorbate?

Don't know about the sorbate, but if you check out all the skeeter pee posts, we manage to ferment over whatever is in the real lemon. If it has sorbate, bet it is a reallly small amount. Arne.

 

[TicinoVintner]

How did this turn out?

 

[Affe]

Turned out great! I actually opted to use sugar over honey this time around, but the green tea worked better than I thought. I definitely want to try a mead version in the future. I was lucky enough to come across some Squirt bottles from the late 60's to bottle it in, so it looks pretty cool too. Bottled it Friday last week and brought a case with me on vacation in Daytona Beach. I wish I had brought more, as that case is down to 6 bottles now. Everyone loves It!

I.definitely needed all 3 bottles of real lemon, and since I was doing a 6 gallon batch, I added another smaller bottle when I backsweetened. I used a type of yeast called Moncharet, and was able to just pitch it in. It was done fermenting in about a week, and I did my best to keep it at 80 degrees farenheight.

I had thought about using honey to backsweeten, but decided against it as I was afraid I wouldn't be able to regulate the sweetness as well as with slowly adding sugar.