Anyone ever ferment iced tea?

Brewer's Friend 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
well , as some one who try to use iced tea as a mixer all i can say is dont do it.

if you really must,, put a cap full of vodca in some tea.
its horable!, tea some how magnifies the taste of alcohol and that was sweet tea i cant imagin how bad it would have been dry.

one cap and wreak a whole glass
 
Clayton said:
well , as some one who try to use iced tea as a mixer all i can say is dont do it.

if you really must,, put a cap full of vodca in some tea.
its horable!, tea some how magnifies the taste of alcohol and that was sweet tea i cant imagin how bad it would have been dry.

one cap and wreak a whole glass
Click to expand...

Well, you say put a cap of vodka in some sweet tea but that would be like putting a cup of vodka in a glass of unfermented sweet wort or wine. I am not saying it would be better dry (or good for that matter) it just would be hard to compare the two. Maybe a cap of vodka in unsweetened tea would be closer to what it might taste like.

Ok, why did you put a cap of vodka in a glass of ice tea? :D
 
BargainFittings said:
Well it would define the word tannins if nothing else.
Click to expand...

+1 But you never know till you try.

Recently my wife started drinking Sweet Carolina Sweet Tea Vodka. It's very good mixed with Iced tea itself and has about zero alcohol taste for a very strong drink. She loves it.
 
I had a drink of that "Twisted Tea" over the weekend. Tasted like instant tea with lemon.

Is that fermented? If so, it does not taste like it.
 
My nephew who was the vitner for a large homebrewing/wine making club has an old "mimeoed" wine making booklet he came across at a used book store and it has all sorts of wild wine recipes including an ice tea wine. He made it, and we tried it, and it was so-so, nothing spectacular. It wasn't really as tanniny as people may conjecture, it would be without actually tasting some.

There are several threads on here about making Hard Tea.
 
Revvy said:
My nephew who was the vitner for a large homebrewing/wine making club has an old "mimeoed" wine making booklet he came across at a used book store and it has all sorts of wild wine recipes including an ice tea wine. He made it, and we tried it, and it was so-so, nothing spectacular. It wasn't really as tanniny as people may conjecture, it would be without actually tasting some.

There are several threads on here about making Hard Tea.
Click to expand...


I guess I was not thinking wine when I brought this up, I guess a wine yeast will work too. I guess regardless of what kind of yeast you use it is not exactly a beer or wine. I guess if you carbonate more like a beer, if not then more of a wine.

BTW, I did do a search on "ice tea" first and it came up with nothing.

I guess I use "I guess" a lot. :)
 
jgln said:
I guess I was not thinking wine when I brought this up, I guess a wine yeast will work too. I guess regardless of what kind of yeast you use it is not exactly a beer or wine. I guess if you carbonate more like a beer, if not then more of a wine.

BTW, I did do a search on "ice tea" first and it came up with nothing.

I guess I use "I guess" a lot. :)
Click to expand...

My recollection of it is that he abd the recipe was fermenting a sweented tea like those jugs of Arizona Iced tea with lemon and sugar, and maybe even bumping up both with table sugar and frozen lemonade perhaps.....basically you are fermenting all the sugar and converting that to alcohol, not the tea itself. (And if I recall correctly, the "tea color" even faded and the wine took on a cloudy, off white or milky translucency.)

But this was probably 5 years ago he did this, so I can't recall.

I know there are a few threads on here about making "malternative" Hard teas like "Mike's" on this forum..There's a couple that were kinda up on the forum for a couple weeks steady during the summer.

Including this one I found with no trouble. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/hard-iced-tea-71079/

And this one from googling "ice tea wine" on this site http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=27013

Here's the very simple recipe:

13 tea bags per gallon (normal 1 cup sized tea bags)
sugar to SG 1060
Lavlin K1-V1116 yeast (its what i had on hand)
1 tsp Yeast nutrient per gallon

Boil a large pot of water (i use a 1 gallon stew pot), remove from stove, add 13 tea bags per gallon of water you intend on adding, 40 for 3 gallons etc, let the tea bags steep for an hour minimum with a lid on pot, pour into primary and fill with water, leaving room for sugar addition, add sugar in stages checking SG as you go i used i believe 8 or 9 cups in 5 gallons for an SG of 1060, which is around 7 to 8 % ABV.

When this is done fermenting i rack off lees, add 1 can of frozen lemonade, backsweeten a bit (i used 1 cup sugar for 3 gallons along with the frozen lemonade) bottle and drink. No need to clear it, once you add the lemonade its going to haze right up on you. Sorbate and sulfite are optional depending on when you plan on drinking it. Ours gets drank right away so i don't bother.

You can clear it if you want, that's a personal preference, Also if it tastes a little weak, once its racked, siphon some tea from carboy, warm it up and steep more tea bags in it, then add back to carboy, you can also use real lemon brand lemon juice for lemon flavor.

Use your imagination, use flavored teas or whatever you personally prefer.
Click to expand...

So there's many ways to look at it, as a wine, or as a hard ice tea, or a "malternative beverage" with some extralight DME for some more "beer like" body...maybe even lightly hopped.
 
Revvy said:
My recollection of it is that he abd the recipe was fermenting a sweented tea like those jugs of Arizona Iced tea with lemon and sugar, and maybe even bumping up both with table sugar and frozen lemonade perhaps.....basically you are fermenting all the sugar and converting that to alcohol, not the tea itself. (And if I recall correctly, the "tea color" even faded and the wine took on a cloudy, off white or milky translucency.)

But this was probably 5 years ago he did this, so I can't recall.

I know there are a few threads on here about making "malternative" Hard teas like "Mike's" on this forum..There's a couple that were kinda up on the forum for a couple weeks steady during the summer.

Including this one I found with no trouble. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/hard-iced-tea-71079/

And this one from googling "ice tea wine" on this site http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=27013



So there's many ways to look at it, as a wine, or as a hard ice tea, or a "malternative beverage" with some extralight DME for some more "beer like" body...maybe even lightly hopped.
Click to expand...

My bad, I was doing a search on "ice tea".
 
Cpt_Kirks said:
I had a drink of that "Twisted Tea" over the weekend. Tasted like instant tea with lemon.

Is that fermented? If so, it does not taste like it.
Click to expand...

because they back sweeten it.

I've made my own ice tea using Lipton tea, throwing corn sugar in.

It takes like straight alcohol. Not good.
 
syd138 said:
because they back sweeten it.

I've made my own ice tea using Lipton tea, throwing corn sugar in.

It takes like straight alcohol. Not good.
Click to expand...

I think it's about 5.3% ABV, but you can't taste the alcohol.

Not my "cup of tea", but the taste was really not too bad.
 
The last 2 summers I have made this:

5 gal AZ Lemon Black Tea (the most easy to find flavor, I believe. It's on sale often).
2 lbs sugar or dextrose

1. Ferment to dry with whatever yeast you like.
2. add preservatives
3. keg with 2 cans frozen raspberry lemonade concentrate

Last time I steeped about 10-15 cold brew tea bags in the keg before mixing in the lemonade for a little more tea flavor.
 
I think I may have fermented 4c iced tea but I'm not sure. It smells like alcohol and sat in my car for a month. It also made a hiss noise when I opened it. Anybody have any insight?
 
I am fermenting 6 gallons of arizona green tea with 2 pounds of cane sugar and regular old bread yeast. (I like giving it a try with oddball brews) right now it is 3 weeks old and still sweet but tasty and works great (has go juice) oddly it tastes healthy and not at all yeasty.
$4.00 a gallon probably gonna get up high enough to really kick my ass and taste better than some can while doing it.

I also have whole hive black tea meade going in a little 3 gallon. That just started but, man it was like the best southern sweet tea I have ever had going in so, I'm hopeful.
 

Similar threads

S
still spirits top shelf flavoring
Replies
3
Views
213
sommadogg
S
Ratdog
Honeybush "Tea" for Beer
Replies
2
Views
591
Ratdog
Ratdog
Gadjobrinus
Brewer's caramel source in the U.S.?
Replies
5
Views
596
kevin58
kevin58
S
Temp in fermenter
Replies
4
Views
220
marc1
marc1
P
Alcohol from iced tea powder?
Replies
12
Views
2K
suzeQ
S
Williams Brewing 300

Latest posts

Back
Top