Adding tea and lemon to the secondary

Hi,

I'm currently making my first cider, according to the recipe "Great Dry Sparkling Cider". The recipe is at the bottom of this post. I'm doing a 4 liter batch (= ~1 gallon).

While it was fermenting, I decided I wanted to add black tea for tannins and half a lemon for some acid. I'm thinking of boiling 250 ml of water with the juice and zest of half the lemon and adding the teabag in for the last 5 minutes. After it's cooled I'll add it to the bottom of my secondary and rack my cider on top of it.

Will it do any good in the secondary? Can I get some taste out of it? Is this too much? I'm a bit of a tea fanatic, so I've got some high-quality, loose leaf black teas I can use instead of the teabag. Will that make any difference in taste and flavour?

How about the zest? Will it add, detract or should I just experiment? It isn't an organic lemon, so I bet there will be some pesticides on the skin. A decent scrub with some soap should get that off, I imagine.

Thanks in advance!

Recipe
From "Great Dry Sparkling Cider" by Echo2112.

Primary:
- 3,5L pasteurised, unfiltered apple juice
- 220 gr honey
- 500 ml water (to dissolve nutrient and honey in)
- teaspoon of yeast nutrient
- teaspoon of dry cider yeast by Arsegan

OG: 1.062

Secondary:
- 250 ml water
- 1 black teabag
- juice and zest of half a lemon

Not sure about but it, but sounds like a great idea if it works. I was going to rack onto some pear juice in a couple days to increase the flavour and alcohol, but I might do this instead if it works. Or maybe a bit of both. Either way, I hope someone has the answer for you. Let us know how it turns out!

Unless someone tells me not to and has a good reason, I'll just do it . I suspect it'll work nicely. I've measured my gravity once already (it was down to 1.000 exactly :O!) and tasted the sample. It was very light, crisp and slightly tart. It was definitively missing some undertones, which I suspect the tannins will add. The lemon skin will add some citrus flavour to it I hope. And aging needs to happen of course. I'll keep posting updates .

Yes! Keep us updated, I would really like to hear how it turns out. I have a cider in primary, and I think I might join you in your quest to mellow out the cider with your lemons and tea! I'm a little excited to see how this turns out!

Will do. Racking in a few days . And please share your experiences too!

What is the value of adding water? You can dilute the honey with the apple juice and so not dilute the flavor with water... Why do so many recipes for wine treat fruit and honey as if they are barley? Is there really insufficient H2O in apple juice?

bernardsmith said:

What is the value of adding water? You can dilute the honey with the apple juice and so not dilute the flavor with water... Why do so many recipes for wine treat fruit and honey as if they are barley? Is there really insufficient H2O in apple juice?

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I think it's to keep the yeast from reactivating too much....just guessing

bernardsmith said:

What is the value of adding water? You can dilute the honey with the apple juice and so not dilute the flavor with water... Why do so many recipes for wine treat fruit and honey as if they are barley? Is there really insufficient H2O in apple juice?

Click to expand...

I think it's to keep from reactivating the yeast. He might want to keep the FG as stable as possible.

Actually, I added the water per the recipe. It's my first batch, so I just want to get some cider experience under my belt. But you have a point, next time I'll forego the water and use apple juice .

On another note, I racked earlier today. I took some pics but my internet connection is not playing nicely. I boiled some water with the juice of one lemon and its zest. For the last five minutes I added loose leaf Ceylon tea. Unfortunately I didn't use a bag for the tea, so I had to strain the liquid which also removed the zest. Oh well, I hope it picked up some of the flavours. The overall boil time was ~20 minutes. I ended up with 400 mL of lemon juice/water/tea mix, which smelled very nice. I divided it between two 2L carboys (yep, that's how small I brew) and it's in my chilly closet as I write !

When it came out of primay it was very light in color and taste. It was also very dry still. Adding the tea made it smell a lot better, so I hope it's going to do something . I'll keep this updated.

EDIT: here are some pics of the process in action!

Colour before racking onto the mixture:


Mixture in carboy:


After racking:


And into the brewing closet!


As you can see, the colour is nice and dark, as compared to the pale colour after primary fermentation. I'm sure some of the colour would have returned during aging, but I like the colour after racking a lot better !

For the curious: yes, I've lost the caps of my water locks. That's why I'm using tin foil.

Looking great, Im racking onto some pear juice as soon as I get more nutrient in the mail. I forgot to add it when I went into primary. Ill link to my forum post on it as soon as It is done so you can check it out. I also plan on using some bentonite towards the end to clear it up.

Cheers!

Sounds good the pear juice should give you some extra sweetness. Hopefully the nutrient can give you fermentation a nice final boost. Looking forward to your post!

Been a while since I've updated. The cider has been bottled and I had my first taste yesterday (after 2,5 weeks of bottle aging). So far the schedule is looking like this:

- 2 weeks primary
- 2 weeks secondary: added tea and lemon
- bottled 15th of February: added 18 grams of demerara sugar dissolved in water, boiled down to 50 ml.

When I bottled FG was stable at 1.000. I had half a bottle left, so I drank it. Here are some tasting notes (I have drunk a lot of wine and beer, but am not the best at describing taste):

Notes after 2 wks primary, 2 wks secondary:
Look:
- hazy (pectin apparently didn't do much)
- tiny bit of foam on top, but not sparkling
- some debris of the tea leaves which made it through the strainer apparently (possibly because this was the last bottle and I sucked some of the lees into it)

Taste:
- less dry/acidic than the first tasting (when I racked to secondary), slightly sweeter even
- it's rougher, more tannic
- not much body to it, very light, but less 'watery' than the first tasting
- I can definitely taste some apple

Notes after 2,5 weeks in bottle:
- it's sparkling nicely with very small bubbles
- still hazy
- taste is extremely acidic. I guess the lemon wasn't necessary after all (or maybe too much), since the bubbles add extra acidity. There is zero sweetness, and unfortunaly the apple taste has vanished again, probably overpowered by the tartness of the cider. It almost tastes oxidised, although I'm pretty sure it's not.
- slight astringency, so there are definitely some tannins. No bitterness though.
- having said all that, it's easy to drink. It has a nice alcohol level. I'm feeling warm and pleasant after a glass of this stuff. ABV is 8-9%, so that would explain it .

I'm letting it age, because I want to see what it does to this drink. It still has quite a way to go, as far as I can judge that. I guess next time I'll do the following things differently:
- Add pectic enzyme and tea at the start of the fermentation
- Don't add honey and water
- Maybe add some lemon (although not the next batch), but keep the amount down to about a quarter of a lemon
- Use an ale yeast like Nottingham instead of a cider yeast

And to finish off, here are some pictures .



Getting rid of the labels





One bottle broke , so I'm left with 10.



I love this picture!



Half a bottle, might as well drink it!



Some tea residue

Anyway, I'll continue to age this, cracking open a bottle every 1 or 2 weeks. In the meantime, I'm preparing to make another gallon of perry with the lessons learnt . Experimenting is fun!

Qopzeep said:

Anyway, I'll continue to age this, cracking open a bottle every 1 or 2 weeks. In the meantime, I'm preparing to make another gallon of perry with the lessons learnt . Experimenting is fun!

Click to expand...

Hi Qopzeep. I'd love to hear some more updates. I have two batches of cider in secondary at the moment. I used Braeburn and Pink Lady apples for the juice, so they lack a certain something. Would love to hear your final thoughts on using lemon and tea to increase acidity and tannins

Hi Bensira,

They're aging ok, but the sour taste of lemon is too overpowering. The tea adds some needed tannin though, so that's a definite improvement. For my next batch of cider, I think I'll add just the tea (maybe even a little more). If really feel the acidity is lacking, I suggest using a tiny amount of lemon juice. Good luck !

I will put one cup of strongly brewedd tea per gallon in primary and backsweeten with honey. It is delicious. No lemon...but I might try that next by adding a small bit of no preservative lemonade at bottling time.

Sounds like a good idea. I like your idea of lemonde, I might try that as well. Just be careful, tartness comes quick in my experience.

I would add fresh lemon juice instead of any lemonade product to avoid that "fake" lemon flavor especially noticeable in Wylers brand.

Hi guys, quick update on this cider. It's turned out quite a bit better with aging. There is a more appley taste to it and the tartness has toned down. It's still too sour though, but on the whole it's quite drinkable. Carbonation and clarity have also improved. So I've changed my mind again: some lemon is ok, especially if you want to age it a bit. Just make sure it's not too much.

Right now there is a perry bubbling away in the fermenter. I'm looking forward to what that will taste like !

How did your ciders turn out guys?