Twisted tea?

[homesteader26]

Anybody ever make a tea skeeter pee? Thinking i will brew tea and replace the water in the pee recipe with tea. Thoughts on this. Anybody try something similar? How did it come out? Tips?

 

[BernardSmith]

I am sure it will be fine. I made my wife a wine from a herbal tea she likes and she thinks that it is quite drinkable.

 

[homesteader26]

It smells great! I brewed 3 gallons of tea and used 1 gallon water with the 2 bottles of lemon. Adjusted to 1.080 and added the prior pees slurry. In a few weeks we'll see if its decent or not.

 

[HeadWatersWine]

So how is your twisted skeeter pee coming?

 

[homesteader26]

The twisted tea came out OK. After it fermented dry it had lost pretty much all the tea flavor so I added 6 tea bags into the carboy and let it sit a couple of days. I had an idea of using instant iced tea mix to back sweeten and add more tea flavor so I added 1 1/2 cups to the carboy. It still had quite a bite to it so I added 2 cups of sugar and I am actually bottling today. I will report back after others have tried it but so far I don't know if I would try this again, this way. Using the tea in the beginning was a complete waste of a lot of tea. I got a lot more flavor by adding the bags after fermenting was complete. Fun experimenting though - I wonder what happens to the caffeine during fermenting?

 

[sour_grapes]

I had an idea of using instant iced tea mix to back sweeten and add more tea flavor so I added 1 1/2 cups to the carboy. It still had quite a bite to it so I added 2 cups of sugar and I am actually bottling today.

Did you add k-meta and fresh potassium sorbate? You will want to do that prior to bottling, else:

 

[homesteader26]

Yes I stabilized and cleared before back sweetening and then gave it another 10 days before bottling. It probably needed more sugar but I was trying to keep the calories down. This spring/summer I may make a simple syrup to add to a glass over ice for those that like it more like the "twisted tea".

 

[HeadWatersWine]

I had heard before the tea becomes just tannin in the wine. I have some skeeter pee that I am waiting on to clear I might use some of that to twist into tea.

 

[Arne]

Did you make your labels yet? Only one I know of to have some TP. Could have fun with that one. LOL, Arne.

 

[homesteader26]

I'm actually thinking of dumping out the tea. It just isn't good enough to waste bottles on. This batch was made with a 4th time using my yeast slurry soooo it may be that I am pulling flavors from that which I don't like or maybe just the tea taste itself. It bothers me to dump it out buuuuut it is taking up valuable space I would like to fill with other wine that has more potential aging.

Maybe I will keep just a few bottles and see what happens to it by summer .....

 

[BernardSmith]

Two quick thoughts:
1. when you add "tea" I think you want to add herbal teas rather than black tea unless it is the flavor of that blend of tea leaves that you want. And
2. when you add herbal tea you want to make the tea as strong as you would drink it had you not added sugar and yeast. In other words, if you are using tea bags you would want to add say about 2 oz of tea for every gallon. In other words, about 1.5 boxes of Celestial Seasonings (about 60 g of tea ) will make one gallon of wine...

 

[homesteader26]

If I do this again I will try with herbal tea. I think its the tea flavor I'm not happy with. Note to self: use a tea you like! lol I do actually like the black tea I used but perhaps its the combination that just wasn't good. It will be a while before I try this one again. So many ideas ....