Drunken Emu's Mississippi River Water (Hard Tea)

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Is it necessary to boil all the water you are using? or can I just filter the last 3 gallons?
 
Just wanted to say thanks. I brewed up a batch of this, leaving half unsweetened, and sweetening the other half with 1 lb of sugar, after batch pasteurizing. It was delicious, and everyone who has tried it has raved about it!
 
al_anderson311 said:
Making this now and had a question. Do you leave the orange and lemon in the pail for the duration of the process?
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I found that leaving the orange and lemon throughout, left it really orange and lemony....but still not bad.
 
Think I'm going to do this with an Earl grey tea:) .. after I bottle my Skeeter pee can I use the same yeast cake for this?
 
Tested and tasted today. Pretty good but I want more sweetness so I racked to a 6 gallon carboy with sorbate and Campden and added a gallon of lemonade. Will taste it next weekend and see. If all goes as planned I'm going to keg this one. Pretty excited about it.
 
Tasted pretty good after a week in secondary so I went ahead and kegged it today. I had four 22 oz bombers full after I filled the keg. I'll let you know how it goes in another week or two.
 
Just put mine in to secondary but added another 24 tea bags to raise the tea taste, any thoughts on how long to leave them in !
 
Thanks again for this recipe. I pulled a growler off the tap today and took it to a party and it was a hit. I bought more tea bags to get another batch going. I love how quick & simple this one is and I look forward to experimenting with recipe variations on my own.
 
Helly said:
Thanks again for this recipe. I pulled a growler off the tap today and took it to a party and it was a hit. I bought more tea bags to get another batch going. I love how quick & simple this one is and I look forward to experimenting with recipe variations on my own.
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are you carbing this and serving around 8psi? is this like a light arnold palmer? i see you back sweetened with lemonade.. can you share any details?
 
LoneTreeFarms said:
are you carbing this and serving around 8psi? is this like a light arnold palmer? i see you back sweetened with lemonade.. can you share any details?
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Yes that's pretty much what I'm going for. I've got it on my second tap, somewhere around 8-10 psi, I'd have to check. The lemonade might be a little strong. The original addition or orange and lemon still comes through. So the next batch I am going to try to lessen the lemonade and see how it comes out. The other change I'm gonna do is to put everything in a mesh bag versus letting it float. I'm getting a little bit of pulp in it. Other than that I think it's a great summer drink, and super easy, cheap, and quick to make.
 
Helly said:
Yes that's pretty much what I'm going for. I've got it on my second tap, somewhere around 8-10 psi, I'd have to check. The lemonade might be a little strong. The original addition or orange and lemon still comes through. So the next batch I am going to try to lessen the lemonade and see how it comes out. The other change I'm gonna do is to put everything in a mesh bag versus letting it float. I'm getting a little bit of pulp in it. Other than that I think it's a great summer drink, and super easy, cheap, and quick to make.
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how much orange and lemon did you add for sweetening?
 
LoneTreeFarms said:
how much orange and lemon did you add for sweetening?
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I took the original 5 gallon batch and racked it over Campden and sorbate and added one gallon of lemonade and let it sit in a 6 gallon carboy secondary for a week or two. I didn't add any more lemons or oranges at that point, although I think I did use two lemons and two oranges in primary, where the recipe called for one of each, I believe.
 
Just bottled my first batch and piece of advice! Do not squeeze your orange and lemon during the beginning! Put in whole! I have a slight pithy taste that needed extra sugar to hide! Other than that this is amazing recipe! Put in 20 tea bags during second fermentation for extra flavor and it turned out great!
 
Started this three days ago... Haven't stirred it yet... is it necessary?
Also, y did I use two packets of yeast for a 5 gal batch? Doesn't one cover up to 5gal?
 
Going to give this a go since I have most all the ingredients on hand, just had to get more tea bags.
 
Ok been 17 days and stored it three times over that time. Air lock is STILL bubbling... Is that right? Is it because of the lemon and orange that are in there too? Do I need to worry about it?
 
OG was 1.042 ish... About 5% mark. Just took out the orange and lemon (I had cut into quarters), and took a reading of 1.000... Added ten more bags of tea cause it tasted good but tea wasn't overly strong... Am wanting to drink it a bit early... This weekend if possible (any issues with that anyone knows of?)... But air lock was still bubbling about once every two seconds when I did all this... Was that the fruit?
 
cms2bit said:
OG was 1.042 ish... About 5% mark. Just took out the orange and lemon (I had cut into quarters), and took a reading of 1.000... Added ten more bags of tea cause it tasted good but tea wasn't overly strong... Am wanting to drink it a bit early... This weekend if possible (any issues with that anyone knows of?)... But air lock was still bubbling about once every two seconds when I did all this... Was that the fruit?
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I could see this dropping a few more points for another day or so. But I would definately say this is something to drink asap.
 
Cool... So it's in a primary brew bucket... Was thinking of racking off to another brew bucket and taking back to my parents house a few hours away so my bro and I can see how far we can get through in a weekend... Leaving fri night to do so.
U think it will be good if I rack it Thursday and roll? Wasn't planning to pasteurise... Just drink as is over ice.
 
cms2bit said:
Cool... So it's in a primary brew bucket... Was thinking of racking off to another brew bucket and taking back to my parents house a few hours away so my bro and I can see how far we can get through in a weekend... Leaving fri night to do so.
U think it will be good if I rack it Thursday and roll? Wasn't planning to pasteurise... Just drink as is over ice.
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I would think so. Maybe take your auto siphon and a growler to fill so you don't gotta go into the bucket for every glass. Sounds like a plan
 
Well... Did wonders... Sat night was hit! All this stuff needed was a few tea spoons of sugar to let it roll down the throat a lil easier... Killed 3 gallons in 1 night... Good times, good times.
Great recipe
 
Still warm in the bucket. Ill most likely pitch tomorrow. Its awesome smelling!
 
Here it is as of a few minutes ago
IMG_20130813_082158_238_zps49fce991.jpg
 
cms2bit said:
OG was 1.042 ish... About 5% mark. Just took out the orange and lemon (I had cut into quarters), and took a reading of 1.000... Added ten more bags of tea cause it tasted good but tea wasn't overly strong... Am wanting to drink it a bit early... This weekend if possible (any issues with that anyone knows of?)... But air lock was still bubbling about once every two seconds when I did all this... Was that the fruit?
Click to expand...

How long did you leave the secondary tea bags in?
 
I just backsweetened mine (2 cans lemonade for 5 gallons) and bottled this weekend. I used 1 lemon and 1 orange cut in half (not squeezed) for the first week in the primary as per the instructions but mine ended up with a strong pithy taste. Not sure what happened.
 
I made a 5 gallon batch of this recently. Split the batch before bottling and made up some peach syrup for one half and lemon syrup for the other (frozen lemonade concentrate doesn't seem to exist really over in the uk). No pithy flavour or anything. Results were very tasty. Only problem I had was that sorbate and kmeta didn't hold up their end and so I had to fill 3/4s of my fridge with bottles of iced tea before they overcarbed. Nice recipe though. I added another 20 teabag infusion before racking into secondary also. Worked out better than I expected.
 
Just made up a 6 gallon batch of this! Can't wait!

I love southern style sweet tea but without lemon, so I left off the lemon and orange part of the recipe.

I realized after I had set everything aside and anxiously waiting for those lovely tell-tale bubbles that I pitched the yeast directly into the wort -- I didn't rehydrate ... :mad:

I hope that won't mess me up -- guess we'll know in about a day or 3.
 
Ok - so update

It must not matter (so far) because I just saw activity in the airlock -- so 6-7 hours and I see my favorite bubbly-bubbly!

Edited at 10AM next morning -- this thing is bubbling like crazy. I had added yeast nutrition and yeast energizer because I was worried about the acidity of the black tea.

Can't wait -- when this is finished I'll be backsweetening about half of it for me and if it tastes OK, will leave half of it as "unsweetened tea" for those that don't like sweet tea.
 

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