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Jsmith82

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Last time I brewed Apfelwein I picked up 10 packets of Montrachet yeast to play with (.50 cents a pop). A couple moths ago my wife and I were at the grocery store walking down the juice isle and look out, the wheels started turning upstairs... haha.

Forward to today, experiment complete: Success!

I'm not really sure what to call this as it turned out tasting and feeling like a dry chardonnay but it's strange... it doesn't know what it wants to be; the fruit and tea flavor is still there but it is VERY light and minimal... One thing is for certain, it's wonderful on a really hot day when it's cold, and the humidity here in STL these past 2 weeks has been insane, you get the idea.

St. Louis Summer Tea (2 gallon batch)

Ingredients:
2 gallons Arizona Sweetened Iced Tea with Lemon (sold in 1 gal jugs, no preservatives or additives)
1lbs Dextrose
1 (small, 15oz I believe) can of Oregon Cherries in syrup (no preservatives or additives)
1 qt water
1 tsp yeast energizer
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 pack Montrachet yeast
1 funnel with a screen
1 2+ gal carboy
1 CO2 lock

Instructions:
1. Open and dump the entire can of cherries into a 1qt pitcher then add your water till it's filled to the 1qt level.
2. Using a masher, start going at it with the cherries in the pitcher, mixing and mashing until it appears and feels like it's very well mixed, then set aside.
3. Pour half of each gallon of tea into your carboy.
4. Dump a half pound of the dextrose into each now half filled tea jug.
5. Add 1 tsp of yeast nutrient to 1 tea jug, Add 1 tsp of pectic enzyme to the other jug, cap them, then shake them to mix everything up.
6. Dump the remaining tea / sugar mixture into your carboy.
7. Open 1 pack or Red Star Montrachet yeast and pour it into the carboy.
8. Using a funnel with a screen, pour the pitcher of cherry water through the screen into the carboy, avoid dumping the actual cherries in.
9. Cap it with your CO2 lock (used vodka in mine), put it in your brew closet, then forget it exists for 8 weeks.

As for carbonating, I used a little under 1/2 a cup dextrose added to 1 cup boiled water then racked on top of it. I'd recommend standard measurements to a batch, 3/4 a cup to 5 gallons, cut and go from there.

Fermentation was VERY slow on this, it took quite a while to get going and even then it was not a vigorous fermentation at all, but it sure the hell did ferment. I had an OG of 1.055 and a FG of 0.997, ABV clocked between 7.5 and 8%.

**WARNING** This is VERY dry. You may want to sweeten it back up a little bit but you'll need to add potassium sorbate to prevent your added sugar being fermented out again, which in doing so without forced carbonation you will not get carbonation in your bottles. On a side note though, this is very good even without carbonation, so find what works for you.

Bottom line though, it tastes really good and it is SUPER cheap to throw together, everything you need (minus the yeast, energizer, and enzyme) you could find at a local grocer and this 2 gallon batch cost me a total of 10 dollars (I got 23 bottles out of it, that is 0.43 cents a 12oz bottle!). As far as using a different brand or style of tea, just make sure it is not sugar free and it does not have preservatives or strange additives; Arizona works great.

Oregon Cherries: $3.00
1lbs Dextrose: $1.25
2 Gallons Arizona Tea: $5.00
Yeast: $0.50

One of these extremely cold on a 95 degree sunny day with a heat index of 110? Priceless!

I'm sure I'm not the first to brew something like this so if you have a similar recipe please share it, I'm all ears and eager to make more beverages of this fashion. If anyone else gives it a try, please post back what you think. :mug:
 
Do you think this would work without yeast energizer and pectic enzyme?
 
The pectic enzyme just helps clear it out and prevent haze so that is not a necessity. There is plenty of fermentable sugars for the yeast to blast off of in there so you probably could get by without the energizer, I just prefer to use it to ensure they really get up and going.


***EDIT*** I adjusted the pectic enzyme and energizer amounts above, I used 1/2 a teaspoon each per gallon, not a full teaspoon each per gallon.
 
We were down to 4 bottles left so I threw a 3 gallon batch together last night, snapped off some photos of what it looks like before and after; pretty interesting change in color and flavor.

3 gallons in the carboy:
2011-08-01202647.jpg


The after:
2011-08-01202956.jpg


I would like add, though its very dry, our first batch has carbed up a bit and really is tasting great, I'm thinking the carbonation made a huge difference. Also served VERY cold, it's awesome.
 
Thinking outside the box! I like it! This does sound refreshing. SWMBO likes very dry wine, so I think she would think it is great.
Do you secondary this or just rack it with the priming sugar and bottle?
I'm going to try this. Maybe try a different fruit. I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
There is no need for a secondary with this in my opinion, it sits long enough on its own to clean itself up. On brew day after pitching, the tea is extremely dark and murky, you can somewhat see the yeast in suspension. Within 24-36 hours a good layer of krausen will form and you can visibly see the action (which on this batch is hammering WAY harder than my first batch, the yeast are hard at work). Fermentation will slow and putter out eventually, the krausen will fall to the bottom and gravity + weight will pack it pretty firm onto the cake. After a good 8 weeks it clears out pretty well though leaving it longer would probably do nothing but help.

If you go for it, post back and let me know your thoughts!
 
a while ago I did a gallon of black and green teas with sugar added, fermented it dry ended up tasting horrible even at ~3 months

maybe I should have added cherries :)
 
This looks interesting, I have to much on the to brew list right now but I'm saving this for next spring
 
Cascadegan said:
a while ago I did a gallon of black and green teas with sugar added, fermented it dry ended up tasting horrible even at ~3 months

maybe I should have added cherries :)

Could possibly have just been the brand and taste of the chosen tea. The arizona sweetened is pretty sweet to begin with and has a tart flavor to it. I think that tart carries over, then the cherries just add to it. Like I said above, it really reminds myself and others of a dry wine but it drinks very easily..

What kind of yeast did you use and did you add anything additional side from the sugar?
 
Raisins huh? I've heard a lot of people doing that, actually I became familiar with it when I stumbled across a topic about brewing a beer made from grocery available ingredients only. I'll have to try that sometime and see if it brings any sort of additional flavor to the table.

As for the tea I used, it appears we used the same:
ArizonaLemonGallon.jpg


Maybe it was conditioning time before bottling, cabonation, lots of factors, the biggest probably being just taste though. I've got a lot of friends hooked on this, but with all honesty I have other friends who didn't like it, mostly focused beer drinkers (not insinuating anything by that). Tell you what, if you're interested in doing a bottle trade, I'd be happy to swap with you, a homebrew for a tea, shipping fee is cheap enough to find in the couch :p.

Update though on my 3 gal batch, still bubbling away but the krausen layer has fallen already, now there's just a thin layer of foam / bubbles / yeast / goodness. No clarity yet.
 
DERP.

True story, bottling a batch of this last night that's been sitting in the carboy for about 8 weeks.. I grab 4 sixers of empty bottles and 6 22oz bottles, set everything on the back of my electric stove which is normal for my assembly line, but slightly out of order I then kicked the front burner on to start bringing my priming water up to a boil (I usually grab bottles after racking onto the priming solution).

I turned the back burner on by mistake...

I'm getting sani-solution together and dropping bottle caps into it when I noticed the smell, turned around, 2 of the sixers were completely smoking! Killed the heat, laughed it off, nothing was harmed but DAMN!! I do some of the stupidest !@#$ while brewing, I just don't believe myself sometimes..

At least the end product usually tastes good.

Another batch down the hatch!
 
This sounded interesting so I threw together a batch of this last week. Made a 5 gallon batch, but with the addition of the sugar, water and fruit it came close to six gallons. I used table sugar, three pounds in two quarts of water to make a simple syrup, and raspberries instead of cherries. I used three cans, and dumped the whole can in. For yeast I went with a pack of T-58. Thought it might add a little complexity to the mix. It has worked well on the ciders I have used it in, and will ferment to below 1.000. Fermentation started within 12 hours and is fairly strong. It has slowed down a bit by now, but I still have a raspberry krausen on top. :) Being as I dumped the fruit in I will probably secondary, and add the pectic enzyme at that time.

Anyway, it looks and smells promising, and will update as it progresses.
 
Cheers! Definitely come back and tell, I love raspberries - I bet that batch will rock.
 
I finally got my batch into the secondary last weekend. Added the pectic enzyme, and when I was in the back of the basement this morning it was so clear you could read through it. Kind of hard to describe the taste but it was good, with a nice raspberry finish. I am planning on bottling this weekend, when this gets carbed and ice cold it should go over big.
I'm planning on saving it for a party this summer at our place up north, naming it Flambeau Summer Tea.
 
Love it RB. This drink is different for sure. I still have a couple from a year ago I havent popped yet, definitely will share taste notes..

Its summer HBT, little money and a lot of lawn to mow? Brew 2 gallons!

Cheers
 
Looks tasty. I've got family in North County and have spent many summers in StL. Sounds like a perfect summer drink.

Matt
 
so no need to heat this concoction up before fermentation? I guess if the cherries and the tea come right out of the can/jug it's all sanitary, right?

how about different yeasts? I have some 1/2 packets of S-05, S-33, T-58 and Nottingham in my fridge... can I mix and match? would using two different types of yeast work, or would it cause a yeast War?
 
No need to heat it, it's ready to roll. As for different yeasts, I have not used anything but the dry montrachet. I love Nottingham, I could see that being good - not finishing so dry and retaining some sweetness. The beauty of this KD is it is incredibly cheap to make, why not pick up 4 gallons of tea and make 4 separate small batches using each yeast?
 
4 batches - good idea! although I don't want to tie up all my fermentation vessels... I'm gonna start with 1 2 gallon batch, although I'm doubling the cherries (in heavy syrup) instead of adding more sugar on the side...

I've brewed about a dozen batches of homebrew (beer, nothing like this tea), so I'm not yet savvy in the ways of the different flavors that different yeasts impart, but it's definitely something that I should experiment with as you suggested.

I did recently brew a hefe using Wyeast 3068, and I absolutely loved the banana flavors that came from it. I was also, however, pretty surprised to find that when I tasted my beer again a week later (everything is bottled, not kegged, by the way), the banana flavors had faded in a huge way and were now barely detectable...
 
Jsmith82, here's what I ended up doing:

http://kiddynamitesworld.com/st-louis-summer-tea-homebrew-batch-15/

cliff notes: 2 gallons tea, 2 cans cherries. leftover Notty yeast. I had to add 3/4 cup of maple syrup at the end because my OG was light, on account of my not adding the dextrose (I thought I'd get more sugar from the second can of cherries, but I didn't)

I'll let you know how it turns out in a few months!

thanks for the advice.
 
Maple Syrup, that's definitely different! Please do post back in late summer, early fall and let us know how it turned out?
 
I finally got my batch bottled today. I can never really tell what anything will taste like until it gets carbed and sits in the bottle a while, But this one should be a winner. At first there is a nice raspberry flavor, then(I think) a little spicyness from the yeast(T-58). A nice, clean and dry tea and lemon astringency in the finish. Dry, but not overly so, fruity, but not overly so. I can't remember exactly but it finished below 1.000, but it doesn't taste like it.

I'm going to have a hard time waiting for this one to carb up.
 
So it has been ten days since I bottled, I put one in the fridge to cool down just to see how it was coming along. The flavors are coming together nicely,and it is very clear but not a sign of carbonation. Did yours take a while to carb up? Maybe I just need to be a little more patient, but that is not my strong suit. :)
 
It took a few weeks however it never really carbed strong. The bottles now, even a year later give me a slight hiss, some bubbles on the pour, and a little bubble rise action in the glass while drinking but nothing like pouring a beer. Glad it's coming around for you flavor wise, give it another couple weeks and you should get some carbonation.
 
I bottled this today - after about 10 weeks in the carboy (only because I'd been lazy)... I had used double the cherries, and then added some maple syrup.

the flavor is tart and tangy (but not bad) - almost like how I'd imagine Cherry Boones Farms wine would taste. I'll update in a few weeks when it carbs up.

ABV is roughly 7%
 
I just thought I would let you know that my tea turned out really good. The wife loves it and even though I am more of a beer guy it is hard to resist on a hot summer night down by the river. Thanks for the great recipe! I will be sure to be making more of this in the future :)
 
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