Hard Iced Tea: A Journey In Simplicity

Good Morning All,

I finally found a local 5-gallon water bottle distributor (Culligan) who would actually sell their #1 PETE bottles rather than require a deposit on them. So, I found myself with 5 gallons of tasty (or tasteless) water and a free food-safe carboy. What to do? Iced tea, of course.

24 large Lipton/Nestea/Luzianne Teabags (enough for 6 gallons)
5 lbs (approx. 10 cups) table sugar
5 gallons water
Lalvin EC-1118 Wine Yeast
4 tsp yeast energizer

Steep all the tea bags in about 2 gallons cold filtered water for approximately 6 hours. Dissolve table sugar in approximately 1 gallon water over medium heat. Rehydrate yeast and energizer in approximately 1 quart water. Combine all ingredients in sanitized carboy, aerate well and pitch yeast.

I used the polymer cap that came with the bottle as a stopper--I'm out of airlocks so I've just got sanitized plastic wrap over the hole for now. I can't tell if there's activity after 12 hours or if it's just remaining starsan foam on top of the must, but it looks good. Like tea, with a kick.

I'm curious what the pH is.

I did a hard ice tea a few months back.

Tastes like cold black tea with alcohol in it.

I would suggest back-sweetening this.

Ah yes, potassium sorbate/campden tabs will go in for a minumum of 24 hours once fermentation is complete. I'm struggling with backsweetening with lemonaded concentrate or more table sugar. Either way, it will be an alcoholic sweet tea. I think I'll bottle it sparkling (post-keg, of course).

I'm curious about how different this would really be compared to just sugar, water and yeast energizer, with the tea added after the fact. Does the fermentation process change the tea at all?

MacBruver said:

I'm curious about how different this would really be compared to just sugar, water and yeast energizer, with the tea added after the fact. Does the fermentation process change the tea at all?

Click to expand...

Some have said including the tea with the fermentation process mellows the tea flavor. I'll see in a few weeks.

jkpq45 said:

Some have said including the tea with the fermentation process mellows the tea flavor. I'll see in a few weeks.

Click to expand...

Yes I would also like to know.
Tea itself is "fermented" in a sense. Green tea being dried fresh and Black tea being the oxidized variety.