How to bottle iced tea?

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gokupop

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I love brewing iced tea. I wanted to know the best way of getting my brew bottled. I'm guessing I can brew my iced tea like usual, put them in cleaned out beer bottles and then cap them with a wing/bench capper. I then wanted to put a sticker on the bottle.

My iced tea brew is simple, water, sugar, tea bag, sometimes lemon/honey. I plan to drink them within a week. I'm guessing without special preservatives or bottling equipment, the brew in bottle should go bad after a week?

Does idea/method sound right? If so can anyone recommend a place for caps and a capper?

Thanks
 
A bit of a dumb question, but if it is going to be drank in a week why not just put it in gallon jugs and pour glasses? Bottling is a real pain.
 
I have a lot of local friends and family that like the iced tea I make. I wanted to give them out. I would like it to last longer than a week if it's that simple? That's a question I have...
 
If you're worried about anything growing, you could always put it in a bucket, hit it with campden, let it rest for a few days, then bottle.
 
Those campden tablets seem pretty cool and inexpensive. How long do the preserve a drink like iced tea or wine as it says on the website I read? Does it the expiration by weeks? Months? If my bottled ice tea can last at least 1 month that would be so nice....

Thanks for the mention of the tablets Moonshae!
 
How long does it take you to brew your iced tea? Can you share your recipies? I love a cold glass of fresh iced tea, but hate it after its been in thr fridge a few days.
 
If you're not carbonating it, then just get some bottles and put it in there. I don't really see any procedure being involved. 2-liter bottles should work fine.
 
I have never made iced tea, but is there any way you could bottle the tea hot? I work in a food research lab and we hot fill boiling water into glass all the time. Just make sure you get the bottles into water and they should cool down nicely.

If you did that you would have no worries about growth for a descent amount of time.
 
I realize this is an ancient thread, but I was looking for something else and noted I do have an answer to this thread.

Bottling Tea:

1) Prepare your tea in your normal manner. However, it is not recommended to put in any additives at this time (sugar/lemon/etc), unless you brew them into your tea.

2) Remove all tea bags and other solid ingredients.

3) Heat bottles in oven to 350F.

4) Bring tea juice to 180F (any hotter and it will become bitter and evaporate the flavors in the tea) -- if your tea is done by boiling in the first place, you can skip the previous steps, steep it, remove bags, and go to the next step.

5) Take tea juice off heat, add other ingredients.

6) Funnel tea juice into hot bottles.

7) Put caps in 180F water to sterilize them and to bring them up to temperature with the bottle.

8) Cap immediately.

9) Let cool slowly.


Note: If your bottles are fragile, they will break. If the temperature difference is too great between the tea water and hot bottle, the bottle will break.

This will create a sealed bottle. Wait at least 24 hours before opening a bottle. You can refrigerate the bottles after the first 24 hours if you wish, but it is unnecessary. Store like beer, drink within 3 months depending on the type of tea.

A sealed bottle will gasp for air when you open it. These bottles have negative, not positive pressure.

It isn't a ton of work, but it is a good amount. It will throw the flavors off on some types of tea, but not all. If you start with the sugar in the tea, it will concentrate and make it even sweater. If you start with the lemon juice in it, it will become bitter.

Hope that helps.
 

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