Sah'tea Dogfish Head Chai Tea Recipe Help?

Hi,

Trying to develop a recipe similar to Sahti version made by Dogfish Head. Help appreciated.

Most interested with help of Chai Tea and Juniper Berries...

I will alter grain bill in Pro Mash, but am trying for a 7/1 ratio of Pilsner Malt to Rye for a 9% ABV. I will also adjust hops for about a 6 IBU.

5 gallon recipe + Chai Tea addition

Juniper Berries:
1 oz., dried, crushed

Chai Tea:

Spices
4 tsp. grated ginger root
2 whole star anise (ground up)
2 tsp. cardamom seeds
10 whole black peppercorns
20 whole cloves

1/2 c. black tea (darjeeling)

11 cups water

Bring spices to a boil in 11 cups water and then simmer immediately
Add black tea at simmer and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain tea and spices.

Add Chai Tea and Juniper Berries to wort at flameout.

Hefeweizen Yeast

Any thoughts?

Sorry, I think I should limit the tea to 5 cups of water.

i make my chai tea with my own spice blend all the time. here is the recipe i use: http://www.chai-tea.org/rec/rec104.html

i use fennel seed instead of anise. you will probably want to leave out the milk/soy milk. also, THE SECRET TO MAKING GREAT CHAI TEA IS TO REUSE THE SPICES (OTHER THAN TEA LEAVES) FROM THE LAST BATCH. i freeze the used spices in a teaball in the freezer until i need it for the next batch. if you are on your first batch, and you don't have any used spices, then use 50% extra of each spice.

Sahtea tastes like another DFH beer that was released around that same time, except it has the chai spices. Maybe it was Theobroma or Pangea. If i was trying to establish a recipe for this beer, i would try to find a recipe for one of those beers, brew it, then add the chai tea to the finished beer in order to establish how much belongs in the recipe.

p.s. i use 6 green cardomom pods in that recipe above

buy your spices from the closest indian grocery store, and buy whole spices, not ground. you can buy A WHOLE POUND of cardamom for $8 at an indian grocery store. it will cost you $10 for a small shaker of cardomom IF you can find a store that carries McCormic brand.

also, chai tea is not like regular tea, it is brew at a much higher temp for a much longer time than normal tea. as a result, i don't think you will get the proper extraction from dry hopping the spices. i would add the spices with 30 or 60 minutes left in the boil (once you establish how much belongs in the recipe) or brew the tea on the side then add it to the wort.

one more thing, you are going to spend a considerable amount on spices if you don't already have them in your spice rack, maybe $30 at an indian grocery store (but that will make a bath tub full of chai). if you can find a indian/asian/world market that sells spice by the ounce, that's the cheapest option.

i use regular old black tea or even English Breakfast Tea. darjeeling is probably expensive and unnecessary.

i would not recomend simmering the tea because you are going to leach tannins out of the leaves leaving a very bitter tannic flavor although the spices are ok. Add the tea at flameout with the juniper berries and steep for maybe 5-10 minutes (too long and you will leach tannins from the tea leaves). Also +1 on the darjeeling being unnessesary as opposed to an english breakfast tea. Sounds like an interesting recipe to say the least

I'm planning on doing a Chai Milk Stout, and my plan is to make about a gallon of the tea during my brew process and add possibly use it to sparge.

I think I am going to make the Chai Tea on the side.

Wow, $30 for peppercorns, ginger root, etc. I imagine the major cost must be the cardamom. Would cardamom seeds be a cheaper alternative? I am not looking to double the cost of a batch of beer.

That is a very interesting idea about sparging with the Chai Tea. Would I lose the taste effect of the tea though if I did a 90 minute boil? Would I get a better taste just adding the Chai Tea at flameout? I don't know.

I'd agree on avoiding a prolonged boil with the tea. The protein in the milk added to masala chai (chai means tea) would help to bind the tannins.

I think your recipe sounds too heavy on the spices for how I remember the beer (granted I had a bottle after it had been out for 6 months or so). I’d cut back on the cardamom and star anise in half, and the clove down to just a couple buds (they provide a flavor that can easily overwhelm a beer). The pepper and ginger sound about right. DFH mentions cinnamon, but not star anise on their site FYI. I’d also wait to add the spiced tea to the beer at bottling, that way you can do it to taste (add it incrementally until you get the flavor balance you want).

If you aren’t going to do the hot rock caramelization that DFH talks about, I would take the first couple quarts of runnings and boil them down to a thick syrup on the side before adding it back to the main wort.

Good luck

i mean you would pay $30 if you chose to buy a pound of each spice at the indian grocery story, or buy a McCormick shaker of each spice.

if you already have half the spices (bay leaf, peppercorn, etc) or you can find a market that sells by the ounce, then you will pay much less.

Im just curious how this batch came out for you? My GF and I love the sahtea and I really want to nail it close to home when I brew it. Any other suggestions?
Thanks

Sorry, I have this as my next batch to brew, haven't done it yet. I will post back when I do. Would appreciate any feedback if you give it a shot. Thanks...

interested to see how it comes out...

did you ultimately decide when you wanted to add the tea?

Hate to pile on, but I'd be curious about the results here as well. I love this beer. I assume no one is doing the carmalization via hot rocks method DFH uses for this beer, but would hope we can reasonably approximate the taste and abv to produce a decent clone. I'll be doing extract, so will have that additional step.

thanks - BB.