Experimental Iced Tea!!

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timmystank

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So I had made a batch of cider about a month ago and decided to try and do the same recipe, only swap the apple juice with iced tea. gallons arizona iced tea, 3 cans of minute maid lemonade concentrate and about 3/4 gallon water and 2 lbs. sugar. It tasted outstanding all mixed up but I know the fermentation will take alot of the sweetness out and Ill have to backsweeten. Anyways, fermentation has taken off and seems to be doing well. If it comes out tasting anything like the unfermented product it should be outstanding. Very excited bout this one, as it would be a great summer treat.
 
I have a mixed drink that is very similar to that. I call it a John Daly. I'll be waiting to hear how the fermented version turns out, it sounds very interesting.
 
Hound_Dog said:
I have a mixed drink that is very similar to that. I call it a John Daly. I'll be waiting to hear how the fermented version turns out, it sounds very interesting.
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typically ice tea mixed with lemonade is an Arnold Palmer....i would be interested n seeing how the two differ in recipes
 
Will definitely let everyone know how it turns out. I plan on backsweetening with splenda and maybe another gallon of iced tea, just to get some of the tea kick back in it. Oh and it had an OG of 1.062 so Im assuming it will have a good kick to it.
 
Anyone got any idea of how the splenda and extra gallon of iced tea in order to backsweeten would affect this recipe? Ive heard backsweetening with splenda isnt all that great. Of course I like it in my coffee, so why not.
 
If you're going to backsweeten with tea that includes more fermentable sugars, be sure and do something to shut those yeasties down first.
 
If anyones still interested in this, it's just shy of 3 weeks primary so I checked gravity and it's dropped .02 from 1.062 so it's fermenting. Decided to bring it up stairs to warmer temp as it was in the low 60's the past week and a half. My test tasted outstanding though I'm sure the sweetness will dropout as it humps on.
 
I would add some yeast nutrient and swirl it up if you're only down to 1.042 after 3 weeks. That's some sloooow fermentation.
 
I tried a iced tea and it came out bad! What I did was brew 1 gallon of tea add 24oz of corn sugar and campaign yeast. I let it ferment out completely to about 8% ABV the taste was horrible and the smell was worse. Everything was sanitized as well as when I brew my beer and have never had an infection. I also tried to just ferment sugar water with the same yeast. I was going to try to make something like a cherry cooler with the sugar water this was bad also. I also found a recipe for lemonade. 24oz corn sugar and 25oz of real lemon juice add water to make one gallon pitch the yeast. Failure again. The smell is awful. Any ideas where I went wrong?
 
klcramer said:
I tried a iced tea and it came out bad! What I did was brew 1 gallon of tea add 24oz of corn sugar and campaign yeast. I let it ferment out completely to about 8% ABV the taste was horrible and the smell was worse. Everything was sanitized as well as when I brew my beer and have never had an infection. I also tried to just ferment sugar water with the same yeast. I was going to try to make something like a cherry cooler with the sugar water this was bad also. I also found a recipe for lemonade. 24oz corn sugar and 25oz of real lemon juice add water to make one gallon pitch the yeast. Failure again. The smell is awful. Any ideas where I went wrong?
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Back off the sugar would be my advice. ;) 24 oz of sugar in one gallon? Was that unsweet or sweet tea?
 
Think it was just the low temp I had it in. Gonna let it chill a little longer at a higher temp. Anyone think that may have been a factor?
 
timmystank said:
Think it was just the low temp I had it in. Gonna let it chill a little longer at a higher temp. Anyone think that may have been a factor?
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It can't hurt to try and warm it up a few degrees. Also, it may be that there is a lot of unfermentable material, or more complex sugars in this for some reason.

I think the 2 lbs of sugar alone would ferment out lower, but check what types of sweeteners/sugars are in the iced tea mixture and the lemonade concentrate.

Also, I don't remember offhand what type of yeast you are using (or if you even mentioned it. . .) If you aren't getting much more activity, you could try pitching something that'll eat attenuate well like a Notty. (This next part is kind of a joke, but if nothing else, there's always Brett. That'll eat anything!)
 
Jaymo said:
It can't hurt to try and warm it up a few degrees. Also, it may be that there is a lot of unfermentable material, or more complex sugars in this for some reason.

I think the 2 lbs of sugar alone would ferment out lower, but check what types of sweeteners/sugars are in the iced tea mixture and the lemonade concentrate.

Also, I don't remember offhand what type of yeast you are using (or if you even mentioned it. . .) If you aren't getting much more activity, you could try pitching something that'll eat attenuate well like a Notty. (This next part is kind of a joke, but if nothing else, there's always Brett. That'll eat anything!)
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I used Safale S04. I had used it in a cider and it turned out well.
 
Ok, so if anyones still interested in this, its just shy of 5 weeks fermented and has dropped from 1.062 to 1.012. It tastes very strong but still has a bit of iced tea coming through. I was thinking I may try and find some sugar free iced tea with no fermentables or preservatives to up the tea flavor and volume and drop the ABV(flirting with 8-8.5 I believe). Then I would plan on using lactose or splenda to backsweeten and finally either calculated volume of regular iced tea or just plain old corn sugar to carb it up....Anyone got any input on this?
 
timmystank said:
Ok, so if anyones still interested in this, its just shy of 5 weeks fermented and has dropped from 1.062 to 1.012. It tastes very strong but still has a bit of iced tea coming through. I was thinking I may try and find some sugar free iced tea with no fermentables or preservatives to up the tea flavor and volume and drop the ABV(flirting with 8-8.5 I believe). Then I would plan on using lactose or splenda to backsweeten and finally either calculated volume of regular iced tea or just plain old corn sugar to carb it up....Anyone got any input on this?
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Carbed? I know I don't drink my iced tea carbed, I wonder if this would be better flat and degassed...

Really up to you, though. Not sure whether you're going for a malternative-type bubbly iced tea beverage, or an alcoholic drop-in replacement for plain iced tea.
 
Hegh said:
Carbed? I know I don't drink my iced tea carbed, I wonder if this would be better flat and degassed...

Really up to you, though. Not sure whether you're going for a malternative-type bubbly iced tea beverage, or an alcoholic drop-in replacement for plain iced tea.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think Ive got the flat alcoholic tea thing and honestly Im not a big fan of "real" sweet tea, I like the brisk and lipton "crap" as a true southern would call it. Soooooo, malternative iced tea it is. Prolly just end up feeding it to my girl and her friends and have them lit off 4 or 5.
 

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