Hard Arnold Palmer - (1/2 Sweet Tea, 1/2 Lemonade)

I've always liked non-alcoholic Arnold Palmer drinks (1/2 ice tea, 1/2 lemonade), so I adapted the Light Lemon Mead recipe posted in this forum for this style of drink. Also, note that this recipe yields 4 gallons. You can certainly adapt this to make 5 gallons. If someone already posted a similar recipe, I couldn't find it. They can have all the credit.

Let's call this one the Freddy Couples

Ingredients:
1.5 gallons of organic (or all-natural) sweet tea. Target/Wal-Mart sells this.
3 cans (12 oz each) of all-natural frozen lemonade (i.e. minute maid)
40 oz of honey (I'm not picky)
1 pound corn sugar
1 tbsp yeast nutrient (optional)

Directions:
(I assume you know what and how to sanitize)
Heat 0.5 gallons of water to 170 and remove from heat
Add the lemonade, honey and sugar and stir
Heat the mix back to 170 degrees and then remove from heat
Let it cool down a bit
Pour the wort into a fermenting bucket or siphon into a carboy
Add the 1.5 gallons of sweet tea to the fermenter
Top off the fermenter to 4 gallons by adding water
Cover fermenter with a lid until the temperature drops to about 70-75*F (this doesn't take long in Minnesota during the month of January...)
When the temperature drops to 70-75*F, add nutrient if you so desire
Aerate the wort for a few minutes
Pitch the yeast

I'm a primary-only guy, so I let this one ferment in the primary for 3-4 weeks at 70*degrees as a rule of thumb. Let your hydrometer tell you when it is done.

When fermentation is complete (a steady FG of 1.010 or so depending on your fermentation), it's time to choose your own adventure.

Option A - Bottle/keg without backsweetening. This will leave you with a still beverage that is enjoyable over a glass of ice.

Option B - Backsweeten with 1-3 cans of Minute Maid frozen iced tea/lemonade concentrate depending on how sweet you want it. If you are going to backsweeten and bottle, be forewarned that you'll need to kill the yeast to avoid shrapnel. Do this by adding the appropriate amount of potassium sorbate prior to bottling (non-carbonated) or stove top pasteurize once the bottles are sufficiently carbonated.

I chose Option A. I figure I can always sweeten the drink if needed by adding lemonade/iced tea to my glass.

I have not tried Option B, so let me know how that turns out. If you want to bottle carb this, you may want to add some priming sugar as well.

Sounds really good . Im going to try to make it this week some time .

What kind of yeast did you use?

I used Sweet Mead yeast from Wyeast (4184)

could you cold crash it to kill the yeast before back sweetening?

kellysrepairs said:

could you cold crash it to kill the yeast before back sweetening?

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I've never cold crashed before, but if that kills the yeast, I suppose that would work as well. Let me know if it does. That would be easier than stove-top pasteurizing.

kellysrepairs said:

could you cold crash it to kill the yeast before back sweetening?

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Cold crashing does not kill yeast, but simply makes it go dormant. When back sweetening, this is not a method that will "avoid shrapnel."

Just made a batch of it . Smells realy good

city said:

Just made a batch of it . Smells realy good

View attachment 98158

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Was that a 4 gallon or 5 gallon batch? I can't tell if that is a 5 or 6.5 gallon carboy.

What was your OG rating? I'm curious how different types of sweet tea impact the OG.

Its a 4 gallon . And I broke my hydrometer right before I made it . So im sol till tomorrow ehen I get a new one

TaxGuy said:

Let's call this one the Freddy Couples

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I've always heard the spiked Arnold Palmer called a John Daly.

Makeing a it again tomorrow but different. Adding more tea and takeing 1 of the lemon out and use a beer yeast my buddy used for a cider .that way I can carb it in bottles

TNGabe said:

I've always heard the spiked Arnold Palmer called a John Daly.

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I think it needs some vodka to be called a John Daly

city said:

Makeing a it again tomorrow but different. Adding more tea and takeing 1 of the lemon out and use a beer yeast my buddy used for a cider .that way I can carb it in bottles

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Let me know how it turns out. What kind of yeast are you using? I still think you could bottle carb with the mead yeast if you wanted.

I think the mead yeast last to long .like wine does . The yeast he used was montons or something like that . And it leaves a sweet flavor

Ok so I decided to turn this more into a twisted tea drink . And going to make 4 versions of this in the next week . Brewing the tea myself and useing dextros to sweeten it . I will leave notes on it

city said:

Ok so I decided to turn this more into a twisted tea drink . And going to make 4 versions of this in the next week . Brewing the tea myself and useing dextros to sweeten it . I will leave notes on it

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Yeah, I was wondering about brewing my own tea instead to save money. Let me know what recipe turns out the best and be sure to post your results.

Ok so I did 2 more batches of this . Im really hopeing I like them couse all where 4 gallon .
But here are the changes . First one I did with 1/2 raspberry tea bags and reg tea bags . Didnt let the water get higher then 170 . Steeped for 5 mins then added 1pound( 32 %) courn syrup and a pound of dextrose. 1 can lemonade aid . Let cool ta 70. Added water to top off added nutrient shook the heck out of it then pitched the yeast .
For got to take a reading .

Second one . All black tea bags in 1 gallon of water (did that for the first one also). Up to 170 . Steeped for 5 mins . Added 1 pound of light brown sugar 1 pound corn syrup. 1 can lemonade and did the same as before .
But I did remember to take a og reading 1.030 . Seamed low but all well .
Going to let the sit for about 3 weeks and report back . .
My phone wont let me add a pic at this moment. Ill try to update and then add

Ok so it did add them . Left is the raspberry . The other is all black tea bags .
I work in the food industry and them catainers are food safe . And there 4 gallons lol

city said:

Ok so it did add them . Left is the raspberry . The other is all black tea bags .
I work in the food industry and them catainers are food safe . And there 4 gallons lol

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The OG was probably low due to the missing sugar from the sweet tea. I suppose you could add more corn sugar to compensate for that. Let me know how these turn out. The brown sugar is an interesting twist

I wad thinki ng of adding a dlm to it for ****s and giggles

it's going to be hard to wait a month for this to be done. it bubbling away very happy right now.

i used 2 can's of plain lemonaide and 1 can of raspberry lemonaide. i plan on racking it with a few pounds of real raspberries and back sweeten with another can of raspberry lemonaide.

my question is where would one find corn sugar? i've checked all the stores in the area and even went to the healthly/organic stores and couldn't find it. so i just used cane sugar. hope it turns out.

Nearly every homebrew shop carries corn sugar. I frequent Midwest Supplies given that I'm in Minneapolis. Otherwise, I think other people on the message board have said table sugar can be substituted for corn sugar. You'd have to do more research on whether its a 1 for 1 ratio or something else. I'm already on to my second batch of this stuff. I'm going to up this to a 5 gallon batch with a higher OG by adding more honey.

Well the one of the batches went south . Got a infection. Had to dump it. The other one came out good . But I should have put more dextrose in it or back sweeten it . Its ok . But can be better . I will make more to to nail this down

I recently made a Orange, Passion Fruit, Tea Mead ( or attempted to ) and i wound up with an extremely strong tea flavor. Harsh enough that it makes it hard to drink. Any suggestions on how I can save this mead without having to toss it? Thanks in advance for any help

Sincerely
Zinaku

yes yes yes. Drinking a kill the golfers now. How long to you find the aging process to be. I'm a primary only kind of guy myself, so I'm good with that method. just curious how long it takes to be ready or "hitting" as I call it.

Anyone actually have tasting notes on this?? Save me now if it sucks. I think it looks worth a shot. Those who have brewed, please let me know what you think. What would you do differently next time etc...

How could I keg this without carbonating it? You need psi to push it out the line and soon as you connect it it'd going to start carbing. I suppose to could attach the air everytime I'm ready to drink but

Haven't made Mead yet. Gonna think about this one. How strong is the tea flavor, cause I'm not real fond of tea. Pretty close to a real Arnold Palmer? What if I backed the tea down to just one gallon?

Just mixed up a batch of this with 1 gallon sweet tea, 1 gallon Simply Lemonade, 4lbs of Honey and some top up water. ended up with just over 3 gallons of 1.055 must and pitched some wine yeast. Sample tastes great, can't wait to try it once it's done fermenting.