Drunken Emu's Mississippi River Water (Hard Tea)

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nukinfuts29

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This is for a 5 gallon batch, but you can easily scale it down just by reading this post. I call it Mississippi River Water because I live near it, it's inspired by it, and it looks like it. Tastes nothing like it lol.

Ingredients:

- Water to end up at five gallons
- Generic tea bags, I use Walmart brand. 12 tea bags for every gallon of water. So for five gallons use 60 tea bags.
- Two packets of Montrachet yeast for five gallons, under three gallons one should work.
- 1.5 Cups of regular sugar per gallon, so 7.5 for five gallons.
- One whole lemon. I don't use the juice for this, in my opinion it has to be an actual lemon.
- One whole orange

Steps:

1) Boil a gallon of water in a pot. Once you get it up to boiling, add all of the tea bags and maintain the boil for five minutes. I leave the strings on the teabags and tape them all together so I can just pull them out easily later.

2) After five minutes, remove from heat and cover, leaving the tea bags in for one hour.

3) After one hour, remove the tea bags and place them in the primary bucket (or clean pot if using better bottle) for the moment. Top off to replace the water the tea bags took with them, and add half the sugar to the boiled mixture, stir to dissolve. Toss in half the lemon, and half the orange, and cover again. Thirty minutes later, add to primary.

4) While you are waiting that half an hour, use a large spoon or stir paddle to gently press the water out of the tea bags leaving it behind in the primary. This little bit is very potent and adds to the flavor. You can now throw the bags away.

5) Boil another gallon of water, dissolving the rest of the sugar only. Add to primary after a slight cooling.

6) Boil remaining gallons of water and add them to the primary after a slight cool. I do this to make sure the entire primary of mixture is nice and hot. Just take caution not to add it while it is boiling, especially those of you with better bottles because they will implode.

7) Place the unused half of the lemon and the orange into the primary while the mixture is still good and hot.

8) Cover for an hour (or until it reaches 80F). When 80F is reached, pitch both packets of yeast.

You are going to let this ferment in primary for 28 days at around 65F, and then rack to secondary for 14 days at 65F. I do the primary in a pale with the lid cracked, and secondary in a better bottle under airlock. When in the primary, for the first few days it needs agitation. Take a stirring spoon or paddle and twice a day spritz it with Star San and give the primary a vigorous stirring for around ten minutes. This introduces oxygen to help in yeast production. If you are using a better bottle or carboy you can use an air pump with a filter, or just do it the good old fashioned way and rock it around.

Do not worry about clearing it up, it's going to be dark. You can back sweeten before bottling with 11oz of lemonade concentrate to five gallons of brew, thats what I do. For smaller batches, scale the concentrate accordingly.

Campden and sorbate are optional, but read the first 1-2 pages of this thread and you will see it is suggested. As of this writing I have never used it, but I will from now on.

To carb: Along with the lemonade concentrate add 2 cups of sugar for five gallons, 1 cup for three gallons, and bottle.


Don't think I missed anything, will add a picture a little later.
 
Right on. I've been browsing for other stovetop recipes to make while it's too cold to brew outside. I shall be concocting this today!

Happy Brewing!
 
I forgot an important part, will edit the original thread to include:

When in the primary, for the first few days it needs agitation. Take a stirring spoon or paddle and twice a day spritz it with Star San and give the primary a vigorous stirring for around ten minutes. This introduces oxygen to help in yeast production. If you are using a better bottle or carboy you can use an air pump with a filter, or just do it the good old fashioned way and rock it around.
 
Silly question time: Would the caffeine carry over, do you suggest decaf, or would it matter?

Also: Do you carb or just sweeten?

I use regular....but that is a good question. I imagine a certain amount of it is carrying over, but as to exact amount I really have no idea. I never even thought about it. I drink a lot of sweet tea, so for me it's nothing abnormal. Someone who is not a tea drinker may notice caffeine effects and side effects if they drink too much, but I imagine that is the case with any hard tea. Really good question, maybe someone else in time can answer it.

Also a good question, I will add it to the original post. Along with the lemonade concentrate add 2 cups of sugar for five gallons, 1 cup for three gallons, and bottle. That will carb it up.
 
My husband is not able to drink caffeine so we often use red tea which is an herbal substitute that tastes surprisingly like a sweeter good regular tea. It also tastes better than decaf tea. Decaf still has some caffeine.

Tomico
 
All the batches i made and i have never had an issue. The bottles i have given away have never reported any issues. I can think of dozens of recipes here on the forum that all back sweeten the same way, concentrate for sweet, sugar to carbonate. In fact i cant think of a single hard lemonade or hard tea that is done any other way.
 
I've neer heard of any recipe that backsweetens without 1) killing the yeast (usually by fermenting dry, then adding campden and potassium sorbate), 2) pasteurizing, 3) cold crashing and keeping cold, 4) using something non-fermentable, or 5) cold crashing & filtering to remove yeast.

Adding more sugar straight to a 6% ABV beverage with still active yeast that tolerates 10%+ ABV is going to result in additional fermentation.

Maybe we're crossing signals with the terminology, but backsweetening is raising the FG without additional fermentation...
 
I'm aware of what it means. At 28 days in the primary, and 14 in the secondary, fermentation should be done (see the FG above). I can't be responsible if someone bottles it early. Sorbate is optional, unless they plan to let it sit around for a long time. Mine never lasts more than a month, though.
 
fermentation is done, but you have yeast that are sitting around doing nothing and then you add a can of concentrate that is full of sugar....the yeast will eat that new sugar....

Can you show me another recipe that backsweetens using fermentables without doing anything to prevent the live yeast from eating the new sugar?
 
Sure. The first one I ever brewed is actually very close to mine, I just made a few tweaks. I looked it up, and turns out they list it as optional also.

Hard Iced Tea Time - WinePress.US Winemaking and Grape Growing Forum

Here's a hard lemonade, no talk of sorbate there either

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/extra-hard-lemonade-187035/

Don't get me wrong, if I'm doing something wrong I want to know it. It's just that the brew log has about 60 gallons of this since June and I haven't seen a single issue.
 
You're not doing anything wrong, I just don't think you're using the term backsweetening correctly.

You're using 1 can of concentrate for five gallons, correct? If so, it is fermenting, you're just not really noticing it.

Backsweetening is done to raise FG to whatever level; and it can only be done by making sure the yeast don't eat the new sugar (using the methods I mentioned before), or by using non-fermentable sweetners.

The OP in your non-HBT link says when asked
question said:
Do you add campden tabs to keep it from refermenting?

answer said:
yes i campden and sorbate it

And, the HBT linked recipe doesn't include any backsweetening.

I just want you and others to know that adding more fermentables after the fermentation is "done" (without doing anything else) is going to restart fermentation. So, if you end up bottling immediately, you could wind up with bottle bombs (note: like I said before, it shouldn't be an issue with one can of concentrate per 5 gallons).


Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to be critical, and I'm gonna try this recipe :mug:
 
You know, I never actually read his thread LOL. I will add a note to the OP to adjust accordingly for smaller recipes. I always brew it at 5 or 10 gallons, explains why I never had any bombs.

In the future, including the current batch, I will probably add sorbate now that I know.
 
Wine bottles cannot handle carbonation, they will explode.

I'll have some pictures of the current batch soon.
 
Wine bottles cannot handle carbonation, they will explode.

I'll have some pictures of the current batch soon.

right i understand that, but if you're doing the campden and sorbate addition, the way i understand it is that you cannot carb the drink afterward. maybe i'm wrong.

so you typically carbonate this when you make it?
 
Brewing this now, been itchin to try. Making a 1 g. Batch with a few variations.
15 tea bags, boiled in 1/2 g water ( the tea was and orange and black el cheapo the wife had.)
2 c of corn sugar
1 lemon and orange

Plan on sweetening to taste after done without carbonation. Has anyone ever bottled and carbonated it?
 
sounds good ill try it ;maybe the lemon jiuce has enough effect on the yeast that once you backsweeten and bottle theres not enough oxgen to let it start working again just a thought
 
ejr said:
sounds good ill try it ;maybe the lemon jiuce has enough effect on the yeast that once you backsweeten and bottle theres not enough oxgen to let it start working again just a thought

The lemon juice isn't sufficient to inhibit yeast production.
 
I just did a one gallon batch of this basically using the recipe from a few posts previous. i have a question now. It's been in primary for just over a week and is finished fermenting, it's gone from 1.048 down to .992 (measured .992 for 3 straight days). Can I go ahead and stabilize it then backsweeten in a day or two, or do I need to let it sit on the lees longer and then just stabilize in a couple weeks?? Thanks!! very anxious to taste this, its definitely sweet tea weather already!!!
 
WildBuffoon said:
I just did a one gallon batch of this basically using the recipe from a few posts previous. i have a question now. It's been in primary for just over a week and is finished fermenting, it's gone from 1.048 down to .992 (measured .992 for 3 straight days). Can I go ahead and stabilize it then backsweeten in a day or two, or do I need to let it sit on the lees longer and then just stabilize in a couple weeks?? Thanks!! very anxious to taste this, its definitely sweet tea weather already!!!

Fermentation is done go ahead and stabilize
 
cntryboy3120 said:
cold crashing??? thats putting it in the fridge and killing the yeast right?

Cold crashing just makes the yeasties go dormant. They'll wake up if the temp gets warm. If you want the yeasties dead, use additives or kill via pasteurization....

If you're planning on keeping cold forever, dormant yeast is fine.
 
Hi - just joined here - quite new to brewing - have done a few turbo ciders etc - but just started a Gallon of this with the addition of some sultanas in the second batch of sugar and water to add some nutrients for the yeats and hopefully a lil more flavour.

My question is - i washed the orange and lemon but with the temperature going down over the hour - assuming any bacteria would still be there - I'm kinda hoping the wash i gave them is enough - but would u bother to maybe put a camden tablet in or have u not had any problems? Sorry if its a newbie question but as i said i'm still attempting things.

Nice one - will report on my progress either way
 
This stuff was great. In fact, i decided against making skeeter pee this year and just brewed 15 gallons of this instead!! once it finishes fermenting and i stabilize it, then i usually soak a few more tea bags to help strengthen and bring out the tea flavor! THE drink for a hot summer day!! Thumbs up to NukinFuts!
 
I have a question. What size tea bags were used? The small ones or the family size bags? I would like to try this but don't want it to turn out too strong of a tea flavor. I'm thinking it would be the small ones but am not sure.
 
I used small tea bags but itdepends on how much flavor you want. I made a 1 g batch and still used1 lemon and 1 orange, the lemon over powered everything. So when finished i added more tea, like 1 g to 1 g which meant i cut it in half and had 2 g total. That made it drinkable.
 
I just brewed this :) I used lemon verbena too because I have a huge plant in my backyard.
 
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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