Basic Medicinal Taoist Tea Wine Recipe (need help with small batch logistics)???

[John Nixon Aurelius]

Hi Everyone!

I'm excited to join this community of eccentric homebrewers and beer alchemists. I have been a part-time lurker for awhile.

Long story made short: I train kung fu and study chinese medicine extensively. I also am genetically pre-dispositioned toward alcohol consumption with my German/Norwegian ancestry.
I brew Kombucha every 2 weeks in 2 2-gallon batches, so am quite familiar with the chemistry of yeasts and bacteria in fermentation.

My goal is to create a solid recipe for a basic 1-gallon tea wine, with minimal additives, so that it is essentially how a knowledgeable alchemist may have made a tea wine 1000 years ago (yes, I know traditionally this was not done on a wide-scale). I want to skip the campden tablets, additional raisins, etc. and make a simple recipe of just spring water, tea, sugar, yeast (I am fine taking the modern route on this step and using a Lavlin 1118 packet, etc., natural yeasts and bacteria can be horribly difficult to get a good taste from).

I suppose my questions are as follows:
-How does racking and fining play a role in the smaller, 1-gallon batches? Is it necessary? Obviously I do not want to drink a cloudy mess, but understand I will never get professional level clarity without multiple rackings, etc. How do I get a solid balance between drinking a healthy, probiotic tea wine without it looking like white yeast sludge? And also without racking away half of my single gallon of beverage?

-Are there additional ingredients I would need besides yeast, water, tea, and sugar? I often see citric acid/lemon juice, as well as raisins and campden tablets added to recipes online for tea wines. Can someone explain if these are completely necessary and why that would be?

-How would keeping the tea wine "alive" (i.e. not killing off the yeast) affect my final product. It seems like long-term storage would be compromised due to additional fermentation. Would I be looking at a month-ish storage limit on my brewed tea wines, if they were kept alive?


Is it as simple as make a sweet tea, let it cool, add the yeast, airlock that son of a gun for a few weeks, strain and store? (Obviously sanitizing all equipment along the way).

Thanks again for all the help everyone!
I am trying to utilize older methods of brewing, much as my ancestors did. We drank alcoholic beverages for thousands of years before pasteurization, etc. and thrived on it. Most of the modern process seems to be concerned with consistency and clarity, of which I am not as concerned as commercial companies would be.

 

[Yooper]

I suppose my questions are as follows:
-How does racking and fining play a role in the smaller, 1-gallon batches? Is it necessary? Obviously I do not want to drink a cloudy mess, but understand I will never get professional level clarity without multiple rackings, etc. How do I get a solid balance between drinking a healthy, probiotic tea wine without it looking like white yeast sludge? And also without racking away half of my single gallon of beverage?

-Are there additional ingredients I would need besides yeast, water, tea, and sugar? I often see citric acid/lemon juice, as well as raisins and campden tablets added to recipes online for tea wines. Can someone explain if these are completely necessary and why that would be?

-How would keeping the tea wine "alive" (i.e. not killing off the yeast) affect my final product. It seems like long-term storage would be compromised due to additional fermentation. Would I be looking at a month-ish storage limit on my brewed tea wines, if they were kept alive?


Is it as simple as make a sweet tea, let it cool, add the yeast, airlock that son of a gun for a few weeks, strain and store? (Obviously sanitizing all equipment along the way).

I make kombucha and lots and lots of wine, but never combined that into a tea wine. It sounds, well, interesting. The issue may be that tea is very tannic, and often when tea is added to wine it's for the extra tannins it would provide to a fruit wine. So I'm not sure how it will come out. But a small one gallon batch would be cheap and easy, so why not try it?

1. The wine lees (sediment) compact down fairly tightly, and are easy to rack off off. I'm not sure there is much in the way of probiotics left in the wine- the alcohol level would be toxic to yeast and you don't want other microbes in there (or it would be kombucha).

If you don't want to use sulfites, you don't have to. It does mean more chance of wild yeast and/or bacteria to get in there, especially since it's easy to cross contaminate with kombucha and fermented foods like sauerkraut. And sulfites are present naturally in a small amount as part of fermentation, but not enough to preserve the wine.

2. Lemon juice is added to taste, or acid blend (a blend of 3 acids). A wine can be a bit lackluster in flavor without a good balance of acidity, tannins, alcohol, etc. You can leave it out, of course. And then, if the wine isn't very good at the end, you can add some to taste if you like.

3. Once the sugar is fermented out, your wine will no longer ferment. The shelf stability may not be great if you don't use sulfites, but it won't ferment any more once it's done.

4. Yep, it can be that simple! You can go as complex or as simple as you like. I would definitely get a hydrometer, about $7, to ensure fermentation is done so you can avoid bottle bombs. That's not strictly necessary, but it's a great modern way to avoid those surprises!

 

[John Nixon Aurelius]

I make kombucha and lots and lots of wine, but never combined that into a tea wine. It sounds, well, interesting. The issue may be that tea is very tannic, and often when tea is added to wine it's for the extra tannins it would provide to a fruit wine. So I'm not sure how it will come out. But a small one gallon batch would be cheap and easy, so why not try it?

1. The wine lees (sediment) compact down fairly tightly, and are easy to rack off off. I'm not sure there is much in the way of probiotics left in the wine- the alcohol level would be toxic to yeast and you don't want other microbes in there (or it would be kombucha).

If you don't want to use sulfites, you don't have to. It does mean more chance of wild yeast and/or bacteria to get in there, especially since it's easy to cross contaminate with kombucha and fermented foods like sauerkraut. And sulfites are present naturally in a small amount as part of fermentation, but not enough to preserve the wine.

2. Lemon juice is added to taste, or acid blend (a blend of 3 acids). A wine can be a bit lackluster in flavor without a good balance of acidity, tannins, alcohol, etc. You can leave it out, of course. And then, if the wine isn't very good at the end, you can add some to taste if you like.

3. Once the sugar is fermented out, your wine will no longer ferment. The shelf stability may not be great if you don't use sulfites, but it won't ferment any more once it's done.

4. Yep, it can be that simple! You can go as complex or as simple as you like. I would definitely get a hydrometer, about $7, to ensure fermentation is done so you can avoid bottle bombs. That's not strictly necessary, but it's a great modern way to avoid those surprises!

Thanks for the quick and thorough reply! Yep, the cheapness factor is a major plus. I can get high quality Taiwanese tea for less than $4/oz.

I have debated between plain tea and vs. kombucha wine, and decided to start out with the less-complex plain sweet tea wine. Kombucha fermentation does seem to take some of the "tannic-edge" off of a strongly brewed tea. Eventually that is the goal I am working towards. Baby-steps.

1) You're probably right about the brew being benign and non-probiotic by the end of fermentation. I mostly want to keep some of the b-vitamins they produce.

The sulfites are the big one I wanna avoid. I find it odd how hard it is to find recipes that do not include them. We are major germo-phobes nowadays. I am not terribly scared of cross fermentation from my kombucha, but am more worried about my kombucha batches being contaminated. I plan on fermenting the tea wine in a separate room from the kombucha for sure. (I make kimchi and sauerkraut too rarely, maybe twice a year or so; praying to God nothing I brew picks up that vegetable sourness haha).

2) THANK YOU for the lemon juice tip. I definitely don't mind lemon juice, but your tip to add it to taste at the end is preferable. That way if I don't need it at all I can skip it. I wasn't sure if there was a chemistry reason for its presence.

Also, I already have a hydrometer, but need to better acquaint myself with using it. I appreciate the tip; the last thing I want to do is be picking up yeasty shards of glass outta my closet.

Plus let's be real, I wanna be able to brag to my friends that I brewed a "so-and-so" ABV % brew, rather than just some mystery % brew.

Thanks again!