DrDuckbutter

Recipes 

All,
I want to make a hard iced tea (similar to what a twisted tea is)
so in theory couldn't i just buy a few gallons of sweet tea (in the south) maybe add a little dextrose to up the ABV and go to town?

i know they call many of these drinks malt beverages, i think becasue they add a little malt extract to it (probably to increase fermentable sugars)

anyway, the question, couldn't i just ferment sweet tea into a delicous alcoholic tea?

and does anyone have a mike's hard LIME clone recipe??
thanks

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"witty quote here"

Dr Duckbutter

Chriso

Recipes 

Isn't Twisted Tea sweet, though? You have to kill the yeast, at some point, to let sweetness remain. If you don't kill the yeast, then it will eat all the sugar. You will be left with non-sweet alcoholic "tea"... doesn't sound appealing.

So, I give to you..... Links. Read, and read lots. It's not as easy as you think.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/hard-tea-recipe-62284/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/hard-tea-88608/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/hard-iced-tea-71079/
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/mikes-hard-twisted-tea-other-malted-designer-drinks-53208/


Search lots and read lots and perhaps you will find a recipe (or devise your own) that works well!

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From experience though....... I wouldn't try to "ferment" any such beverage. If you keg, you already have all the tools needed to produce excellent "sweet fizzy beverages" such as Limeades or Sweet Tea's.

Here's what I did for halloween last month:
1- 1.75L Tequila
1- 750L Tequila
2 cans Limeade Concentrate
2 cans water
2 big glassfuls ice (to help keep temp down for force carbing)
2- 1L bottles Margarita mix
1- 1L bottle Strawberry Daquiri mix

Mix all ingredients in keg, seal lid. Attach to 40psi and shake well, off and on, for 20-30 minutes. Purge pressure, apply 15psi to serve, and serve over ice.

Voila, fizzy strawberry margaritas -- and STRONG ones, at that. That was a hell of a party.


Now.... if I were set on tea... what I would do..... would be 4- one gallon jugs of Arizona Sweet Tea, and 1- 1.75L of cheap vodka. Add about 1c. lemon juice, to taste, and close lid, carbonate, and serve.

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SilverKing

Recipes 

This isn't a replacement for what you're trying to make, but there's a brand of sweet tea vodka that comes from South Carolina. It's not bad. just fyi.

Firefly Distillery - Wadmalaw Island South Carolina


If you come up with something, post up the recipe. the only thing I drink more than my home brew is iced tea. I wonder if you could brew enough tea to use home brewed tea. It would beat the pants of pre-bottled tea.

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Silver King Brewery
Tampa, FL

Padstack31

Recipes 

One of the main reasons these beverages are malt based to begin with is so that they can serve them in beer/wine only locations. So it states, like Washington, it can be sold in grocery stores and not just in State owned liquor stores.

In Canada, Mike's is made with vodka (not malt based).

In the summer, I mix up 50% Tea, 50% Lemonade and then add shot of madrin vodka. I call it a John Daly (since without the shot it's called an Arnold Palmer)

The idea of creating a malt based version at home just seems silly since it's done this way to skirt legal issues. From what I understood, the way Mike's makes their product is to brew a lightly flavored malt base, ferment out, pastuerize (to kill the yeast as mentioned above) and then the flavoring syrups are added to make the beverage sweet and to cover what remains of the malt flavor. I interviewed at Mike's about six months ago and this is how they explained it to me.

I'd just pour that sweet tea you mentioned, some vodka (the better the quality the less of the nasty vodka after-taste), maybe a little sweetner (honey, sugar) if needed into a keg, force carb and serve. You could do the same for the Mike's Lime, you can buy limeade at the grocery store...

DrDuckbutter

Recipes 

sweeeet...

__________________
"witty quote here"

Dr Duckbutter

jkpq45

Recipes 

So did you ever pursue this project? How did it turn out?

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BamBamBeano

Recipes 

also curious if you ever tried and how it turned out.

I am looking for some hard tea recipes. My wife loves twisted tea and the recipes around the web are sparse. I've only brewed a few batches of beer and am looking for a "detailed" recipe of how to make some generic hard tea and/or lemonade brews.

jkpq45

Recipes 

Holy thread resurrection, Batman!

Here's what I ended up doing:

Luzianne or Lipton Tea bags, steeped in cold water 6 hours. Use about 3/4 the water called for on the tea bag box.

Add white sugar to get to a respectable OG (I chose 1050).

Here's where some will differ: I kept the ferment cool, in the low 60s Farenheit, I didn't add nutrient, and waited until the Lalvin 1122 worked its magic and settled out on its own. It took a while, but I wasn't in a hurry, lots of other projects. Add nutrient and energizer if you want; it can't hurt, but watch out with raising the temp on the ferment or it could end up tasting pretty warm.

I used one 8 oz. bottle of ReaLemon lemon concentrate after fermentation was totally done. I added potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite (campden tabs) per the directions on the bottles after racking off the primary yeast cake. Let this mix sit a week until you're sure fermentation is done, then backsweeten if you want. I think I used 1/2 cup of table sugar to sweeten the whole batch.

Tea taste is light. I'd consider adding tea concentrate or steeping more bags after the ferment's over. The issue is a lot of tea flavor-producing compounds come from suspended tea particles and tannins; these will settle out over a long ferment. I let mine go in the fermenter (between primary and secondary) about 6 months. Like I said, I was in no hurry. Lemon-tea flavor reminds me of an Arnold Palmer. Nothing like a hard Arnold Palmer, huh?

Pretty good. PM with questions.

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rancidcrabtree

Recipes 

I am thinking of doing something like your hard tea recipe myself and I’m wondering how big your batch was? My guess is 1 gallon...

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mux11

Recipes 

Ever look onto skeeterpee? Got a batch going now and am planning on cutting it with ice tea to make the hard a palmer