Using tea bags for flavor?

I am making a Dogfish Head Aprihop clone and instead of putting apricot purée or extract I was going to try for a tea bag or three of apricot tea to be placed during secondary...

1) Any thoughts as to the best way to get the flavor into the beer... I.e should I brew the tea and dump the liquid into the carboy, throw the tea bags directly in, or some other method not thought of yet?

Thanks in advance, much appreciation!!!

For the best apricot flavor, you would want to add apricot extract at bottling to taste.

That said, I like your idea of using tea. Try adding tea bags after flameout, steeping while you chill the wort. Steep according to directions on the tea. As for how much to use, that's gonna be up to you. Maybe someone who has done this can chime in.

Keep us posted as to what you do and how it works. mmmmm . . . teabagging

Thanks, haha yea that's why I'm calling it; "T-Bagged Aprihop", I wracked it to secondary sunday morning so my options are limited now but I hear primary fermentation can take a toll on slight flavors as a tea bag would provide... That's why I waited, still would like anyone's opinions that have done anything like this before, I can't be a pioneer...

Tea bags secondary? Flavor? Anyone?

"I hear primary fermentation can take a toll on slight flavors as a tea bag would provide"

Good call. I guess what I would do is brew up a real strong tea (like 10 teabags in a quart of water) and add that to taste when you bottle.

Alternatively; you could brew up said real strong tea, pull a sample of known volume (say 10 oz of beer - use a finished carbed beer similar to what you made) and add your strong tea mix incrementally (say 1 tsp at a time) until you get the flavor you desire. Then extrapolate the numbers to match the batch you made, and add that volume of strong tea to primary, secondary, bottling bucket . . . .

Alternatively, you could guess and just throw a few tea bags into primary or secondary.

Best part, when you offer these guys up for consumption, you can ask, "Who wants to get TEA-BAGGED!!"

yea, I think I'm going to brew up a 1 cup of tea per gallon of beer, loose leaf which is a stronger tea, then throw in say 2-3 tea bags...

I love the idea of telling my friends and family that I just tea bagged their taste buds!!!! they'll get a kick outta that one!!!:rockin:

I took what I figured was around three cups of "strong" "ice tea grade" loose apricot tea (no artificial flavors), this ended up being around 1 1/4 oz. Steeped them @195 degrees F for 2-3 minutes into some drinking water that I had boiled for around 10 minutes. I also took two artificially flavored apricot tea bags and steeped them as the other but into a single cup. I then mixed both into a pot and simmered for around 7-8 minutes.

The mixture was then transferred into a cleaned and sanitized mason jar which was placed into the freezer for a bit to cool. The cooled mixture was added to the secondary directly on top of the beer VIA a funnel while trying not to make too large a commotion in the ocean.

Question...

I shook the tea mixture a bit trying to get it to cool therefore aerating the heck out of it; Will that cause oxidation?

It was around a quarter gallon...

What does anyone think this is?

Looks like a yeast raft. A chunk of the krausen that just wont sink. You've got a floater.

Oh, and as for the oxidation; maybe? . . . It's really not that much volume though, and hopefully any residual yeast in there might soak some of it up. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

And I just remembered that that's your secondary, isn't it. In that case, I have no idea what that thing is. Unless you did have a fairly decent chunk of yeast on the bottom of the secondary that could have been knocked loose by adding the tea.

It doesn't look like an infection to me. Maybe its your beer messing with you because it's upset about being tea-bagged.

Nice! Yea I had some issues going from primary bucket to secondary carboy and I sucked up some of the loose trub could be that!

I was planning on keging it Saturday should I wait longer?

I'm interested in how this turned out. Have you tasted a sample yet? I'm in the process of brewing with some peach tea right now. going to steep at the end of the boil. 2 things I was considering:

1. I made a cup of this fruity tea last night and while it tasted all good and well, the aroma was gone pretty quick. I was going to rely somewhat on the tea to get that nice peachy aroma, so I'm thinking maybe I'll do as you've done later on, as well.

2. I started drinking a few hours ago so I really don't recall what number 2 was.

I've brewed a lot with tea. For best flavor, I make the tea and hold it at 180F for 20 minutes, then add right before kegging.

awesome. thanks for the advice, matt.

Be careful when steeping tea too long it like anything else starts to release bad flavors when set for long periods, I will attach the advised times and temps per different teas...

I dont have any idea about this actually i am also searching for this, if some gets it clearly then please contact me via mail

I just kegged the beer! It came out great, it was a little lite in the apricot flavor so I put a teabag in a stainless steel tea ball and tossed it into the keg, what a great boost almost perfect amount of flavor! The beer has a hint of a black tea profile which balances out the hoppyness...

I use black tea bags in my meads to get tannins and a little flavor complexity. I haven't tried it with beer yet. I will probably try a chamomile tea in my wit to get some of that blanche flavor.

Haven't had good luck with tea bags in the secondary, infected a small batch almost immediately.
+ 1 to sticking with purée.

If you are dead set on tea, perhaps at the end of the boil, or steeped separately and added to secondary.