Green Tea Braggot

Hi All!

I'm a relatively new mead brewer. 'Got two in the primary right now:

Green Tea Braggot (just started this evening):
6 lbs clover honey
4 lbs malted wheat syrup
1 box green tea
2 pkgs Nottingham Ale yeast
water for 5 gals

Blueberry Melomel (3 weeks old):
12 lbs clover honey
4 lbs frozen blueberries
1/2 lemon
yeast nutrient
1 pkg Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast
water for 5 gals

Please pass along some updates on the Green Tea Braggot, as I & others would be interested. I made a metheglin once with some orange tea leaves added. Turned out nice & subtle.

Beertracker said:

Please pass along some updates on the Green Tea Braggot, as I & others would be interested. I made a metheglin once with some orange tea leaves added. Turned out nice & subtle.

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After a couple weeks in the primary I decided I'd kick it up a notch. I added 32oz of Big Train liquid Chai Tea. I'm now thinking about adding some more honey, since it's now quite dry. And lastly, I'm thinking about letting it sit on some roasted French oak.

It's probably why you added it, but that green tea should be a great addition for the tannic acid alone. Especially if you steep it a long time before adding it, you can get quite a bit of acidity from the tea. You always need to add acidity to mead.

I imagine that's why you added the lemon to the blueberry. Some buddies made a blueberry mead many many years ago that was AWESOME. Like a light red wine.

My best was a kiwi mead. Second bests were sparkling ginger mead, and pineapple, which I have a couple bottles of still...they're about 11 years old now

Please keep us posted on your meads. Quality mead is good stuff.

Janx

I have made and enjoyed a couple batches of mead that were primarily flavored with green tea - it makes a tasty mead that is easy for friends and family to enjoy. The recipes were so simple that I did not even bother to add them on my website. My general approach is to steep a box of tea in a gallon of boiling water, then add it to the mead must in the primary fermentor. This is because I generally do not boil the must for mead as I believe that it destroys many of the more delicate honey flavors.

As for tea in honey, you might enjoy some of the commercial herbal/tea blends such as chai. Many of the Celestial Seasonings teas are wonderful in mead as well.

I am a new brewer and I intend to take classes at my LHBS, but I am also looking for literature that can detail for me, common (and some uncommon) ingredients, and how they affect beer flavor, texture, color, etc... As well as explain batch making techniques, boil times, hop additions, cooling, sparging, etc.... I live reading all the recipe threads on HBT, but I find myself questioning every detail of every recipe. What does this grain do for the flavor? What does bringing the temperature up 20 degrees for a couple of minutes do for the brew... I just need more clarity.. How detailed does this book get?

Sorry, somehow my post ended up on the wrong forum?

I have green tea in all three of my ferments right now. The yeast seem to absolutely love it and its seems to be adding a very nice subtle flavor. I was expecting my watermelon mead to be undrinkable when I transferred it to the secondary and it was already quite good with a mellow green tea flavor.