Iced tea wine

Iced tea wine:

3 large tea bags
3 1/2 gal water
4# light brown sugar
4# white sugar
1# dark brown sugar
Juice and zest of two lemons
Large piece of ginger smashed in a sachet
Cortes des Blancs yeast
1/4 tea spoon tannin
1/2 tea spoon pectic enzyme
1 tbl sp yeast nutrient

Begging SG 1.111
Racked at 40 days... Still fairly active. Hydro reading tells me its almost done though.

Racked again at 47 days.
Gravity: 1.024
Added sorbate. Heading to cold crash after pasteurizing.

Bottled at 53 days... Already really tasty mixed in to a "Golden Bear Classic" (1/2&1/2 or Arnold Palmer)

Just finished this wine and am super impressed with the results. It really tastes like iced tea with a fairly heavy boozeyness to it... I was expecting that. I was also expecting to make Arnold Palmers with it all spring and summer and when mixed with a splash of lemonade this stuff is exactly where I wanted it to be. I posted on here just to share what I've been up to. Try it out if you want! You might like it too!

How large are the tea bags you're using?

The ones you find in restaurants for bulk preparation. I think they brew about a gallon each.

What would you say the equivalent would be in regular tea baggies?

jeranis said:

What would you say the equivalent would be in regular tea baggies?

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Maybe like 20 tea bags a gallon. It's supposed to taste like the Arizona brand southern sweat tea before fermentation.

jeranis said:

What would you say the equivalent would be in regular tea baggies?

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Lipton black tea for example, you use one individual tea bag per 8 ounces of water, 16 tea bags for 1 gallon; the pitcher size tea bags, marketed as such, will make 32oz per tea bag. Just look up the info for the tea you want to use because it can vary.

This sounds like it could be really good for next spring/summer. What size primary did you have? Do you think you could just use the same amount of honey in place of the sugar and make this as a mead?