Suspended tea bag in secondary with cotton string, good idea?

[sursole]

Have a beer I just moved to carboy for secondary that I was adding a tea bag too. For my process, I boiled 2 cups of water for 10 minutes, chilled it to around 90*C and added the tea bag, then let that sit covered for 20 minutes and chilled down. I racked my beer from primary to secondary ontop of the tea, but I also wanted to add the tea bag for further extraction (elderflower). However, I want to remove it easily in 4 or 5 days.
I soaked some butcher string in starsan for 20 minutes, tied it around the tea bag, pushed the bag through the carboy. The tea bag is suspended in the brew by the string and leads out past the bung.
This was all new to me, and I'm just a little concerned the string my pose an infection point (perhaps I should have boiled it), or could having a damp string leading out the carboy lead to an issue?

 

[Fid]

Meh, You'll likely be just fine. For starters, you soaked the twine in StarSan and beyond that.. since you've moved to secondary at this point you should have an alcohol content that will make it pretty difficult for an infection to form in/be attracted to. Plenty of people rack into secondary directly ontop of unboiled fruit with no problem so I would guess your chances of infection from a piece of cotton twine are slim to none.

 

[fermentinginpa]

Agreed, it's a pretty low risk at this point. Great idea, let us know how it turns out!

 

[helibrewer]

You'll be fine...the hard part is getting the bag out once it swells. If you like the results you might do the suspension thing while it's still in primary just for easier access.

 

[chickypad]

I like to use unflavored dental floss - seems like it would sanitize better but who knows. I'm sure you're fine. As was pointed out, removing it from a carbloy is kind of a PITA.

 

[amandabab]

dont take it out.

let it drop in , siphon the beer out.
then put a cloth in the carboy neck and pull it out, same method you'd use if a stopper got pushed into the carboy.

 

[sursole]

Thanks for the advice, I'll let you know how it goes. The elderflower in its tea form didn't give the flavour I was looking for exactly, but hopefully it'll mix in well. I realized the times I'm had elderflower before had been in sweetened liquors, on its own its much more floral than i expected, and not as fruity. Pushing the tea bag in took a bit of effort, it was already swelled tho, so taking it out should hopefully only be a little bit more difficult. Is the risk of taking it out that the bag may tear?
Don't really want to siphon the beer off just to get rid of the bag, I'm sure I'll get it out with a bit of effort

 

[overdbus]

i just tried a stainless steel tea ball for dry hopping , they come in sizes from 1" to 3" and used mono ,don't see why this wouldn't work for tea also

 

[ScottSingleton]

I just drop bags in secondaries. The suspension method I use for keg hopping when the keg goes into the fridge.

the bag will either float or settle; and you can deal with it after you siphon your beer off for kegging or to a bottling bucket.