tea?

so- I have brewed lots of mead, but am just now starting on beer. Partner finally admitted he needs to be gluten free. Even oats set him off. As his taste in beer does not match what is available commercially, I'm set for a learning curve!!

I'm on batch 4. Each has been drinkable, working on actually being good still though. He liked Hoppinator, Red Hook ESB, Brutal Bitter, Lagunitas Maximus, etc. Also some dark porters and stouts. So- he wants Dark, and bitter enough to make most people's heads implode. (the man walks around chewing on hops)

We've been basing our experiments on brown rice syrup and molasses, but it has still been sweeter than he likes. (he has determined he does not like sourgum or tapioca) This last batch is 6 cups brown rice syrup, 4 c molasses, and 25 black tea bags. (5 g carboy) The tea is a new thought. Hoping it adds the depth that is lacking in the last batch. Just went into bottles, and so far he likes it. (one of my challenges in life- brewing beer I would use as weed killer. I am NOT a hops fan!!)

I was surprised to find the tea seemed to make the yeast VERY happy. we got our initial fermentation in the carboy done in half the time of the last batch. It's now in bottles, waiting for a bit.

So- has anyone else tried tea? Am I about to make something awful? Is this going to be a neophytes lucky batch that will never work again? Has anyone done a dark bitter beer, no gluten, and instructions a newbie can grok?

Thanks!

You can always try the belgian candi sugars for some depth but I am interested in hearing how this tea experiment comes out, please keep us posted.

Welcome to the forums and good choice on a state to live.

For the hop bomb recipe, Logan has what I would do if I were making a hop bomb right here. Just change out the sorghum for brown rice syrup. If you want it drier (sounds like he does) subtract one pound BRS and add one pound corn sugar instead.

For a stout or porter, it's a bit tougher ask. I have been experimenting with dark, prune tasting candi syrup and coffee. I will let the forum know how it comes out when it is ready. My recipes are linked in my sig if you want to see em.

As for tea, well, I have definitely considered it (although not 25 bags). For me, gluten free beer is already too tea-like, and so I wouldn't want to add any more. Your experiment is interesting though and do let us know how it comes out. I am thinking it will be too powerful, but scaled back it could be a viable option. Does tea have sugar in it? I was under the impression it did, which would explain your happy yeast.

Oh, and tea has definitely been used a bunch in glutenous recipes I have seen, so it should work one way or another.

oooh- good link, thanks! No Sugar in black tea, just dry leaves. I'm wondering if the acid level made the yeast happy. We shall see! 25 bags to 5 gallons is what I would use for hot tea, but then, I like tea strong enough to clear your pipes!! Coffee would be my next choice, so I'll be curious how that goes. It's just that I had the cheep tea lying around, and was unwilling to sacrifice the rather spendy coffee we drink!

thanks, I'll take a look at those darker sugars!

Hrothgar41 said:

thanks, I'll take a look at those darker sugars!

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http://darkcandi.com/

Those are what I use.

oooh- fascinating. where in Oregon are you getting them?

this has kind of blown my mind. i have a celiac friend that cant do starches of any kind, and ive been saying id figure out what i could do. perhaps a tea beer might be possible. do let us know how it goes.

is there a chance you can post the recipe you used for us to check out?

check out the possibility of using maltodextrin for a less watery beer
and all grain brewing, i agree sorghum is not the path i want to take either.

Lets see- for the 5 gallons it was 6 cups orgo brown rice syrup, 4 cups black strap molasses, boiled for about 1.5 hours, there were 25 tea bags of the black but cheep sort in there too, and about 2 cups Willamette hops to start and another 2 at the end of the boil (all I had at the time, was broke). Yeast was, I think, the English ale... but I'll have to look at the notes! We'll know in about 2 weeks if I have beer or weed killer! Going in to bottles though, he declared it to be pretty good, though could use a bit more hops. Off to the store again! I may try the next batch with the darcandi syrup.

oop- nope, it was wyeast American ale. (minus the activator pack and plus 2 t nutrient)

you measure your hops by the cup? And four cups wasn't enough for this guy? wow

<rolls eyes> don't look at me, I'm certainly not gonna drink it! He makes tea by putting 1/2 c hops in a ceramic 1/2 g jug and adding boiling water. no joke, he drinks it on ice! I actually had an oz measurement, but as a cook what I remember is cups! It's one of the reasons I tried adding so much tea- I didn't figure the tannin would bother him, even if it did come out too strong. I have to admit though, the tea flavor so far is a nice mellow deep tone. not full, but deep, which is a nice thing for the GF beer. Also- it was dried hops, not pellets. hmm- maybe I should just move on up to pellets?

2 cups of hops is only like 2oz. 2oz of Willamette will give you about 50IBU, which is a few, but not insane. The 2nd 2oz was just for aroma, nothing else. Sounds like he likes hop tea, so I would toss a 15min addition in there of whatever hop he likes the flavor of. The one will actually give some hop flavor.

Make him an IPA if you want hop flavor, Logan has a great one with a hop schedule I already linked you. Pellets vs Whole Hops won't really mean that much. Seriously, nothing compares to a Double IPA. Don't worry about tea or anything in that one, only one flavor will win the day.

As for your porter/stout esque beer, keep trying, but lower the IBUs a bit into the 30-40 range to get the ability to use other black, bitter substances. Looking at logan's Double Chocolate and our notes or the resulting recipe of my GF Coffee Stout. That should give you a good idea where we are going at least.

thanks!

We popped a bottle tonight. A tad early for real carbonation, but we just got to curious to wait. It's pretty good! Tastes rather like Tetley's. Rather a nice Summer ale, decent balance, probably a fluke, but it's got me feeling confident, so it's off to try the Double IPA next!!! If this keeps up, I shall need to grow hops next year. Luckily, I live in a good place to do that! Mr Gluten Free, who is sitting with his beer and his cat, is quite pleased, but plans more hops for future batches. Me, I'm pleased as punch!

Hrothgar41 said:

We popped a bottle tonight. A tad early for real carbonation, but we just got to curious to wait. It's pretty good! Tastes rather like Tetley's. Rather a nice Summer ale, decent balance, probably a fluke, but it's got me feeling confident, so it's off to try the Double IPA next!!! If this keeps up, I shall need to grow hops next year. Luckily, I live in a good place to do that! Mr Gluten Free, who is sitting with his beer and his cat, is quite pleased, but plans more hops for future batches. Me, I'm pleased as punch!

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I assumed with 25 tea bags it would taste somewhat like tea. How strong is the tea flavor in there? Is it just bitter, alcoholic tea?

No. The tea flavor is very much just a mellow depth note, not a tea flavor. It's not particularly bitter at all, a little hoppy, but not to IPA standards (which means I must use more next time to make himself happy) 25 cheep tea bags in 5 gallons is not a particularly strong tea if one is just making tea. Usually one uses 1 bag per 8 oz to make tea and there are 80 cups of liquid in that carboy. Were it bitter alcoholic tea, I would not have been pleased by the balance.

Hrothgar41 said:

No. The tea flavor is very much just a mellow depth note, not a tea flavor. It's not particularly bitter at all, a little hoppy, but not to IPA standards (which means I must use more next time to make himself happy) 25 cheep tea bags in 5 gallons is not a particularly strong tea if one is just making tea. Usually one uses 1 bag per 8 oz to make tea and there are 80 cups of liquid in that carboy. Were it bitter alcoholic tea, I would not have been pleased by the balance.

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I wonder if there is a tea that tastes somewhat like barley...

There's quite a few different types of teas, most of the chinese ones are said to have darker flavors described as smoky, or malty. I usually drink my teas pretty light and I think as light as I normally have them, they might be overpowered by the hops. In your tea/beer brew, do you find that the hops assert themselves over any secondary flavors in the tea? (Other than the typical astringent "tea" flavor found in a black tea.) Even considering the effect of the extra hops used?
As a second thought, tea would be much like any other herb or flavoring and there's probably quite a few tea/hop combinations that could work, or just as easily counter.

I am not a big tea guy, can you give me the names of these malty chinese teas?

I'm a bit off on my teas and haven't really looked for the particular flavor profile, but here's a description of a few that I get from a local tea store.
Generially, the Assam teas are the ones that have the malty notes, though a Yunnan tea might work too.

150 Assam FTGFOP1 Mangalam (Second Flush): Slightly heartier and creamier than some whole leaf assams, this selection picks up deep malty notes, cocoa and subtle fruit.
160 Assam SFTGFOP1 Marangi: Generous malted notes of barley and an ale-like fruity depth lead the way, reinforced with a cast of notes ranging from caramel to Brazil nuts.
570 China Golden Yunnan: malty, creamy and redolent of truffles or mushrooms
571 China Yunnan Golden Downy Pekoe: Malty honey and spicy tobacco notes give way to a truffle-like dampness

Guess I know which black teas I'll have to try out next time I go there.

As a non tea item, there seems to be a website www.naturesflavors.com that says they sell a gluten-free malt flavor concentrate that gives a malt flavor for milk products. It might be a worth a look into.

KevinM said:

160 Assam SFTGFOP1 Marangi: Generous malted notes of barley and an ale-like fruity depth lead the way, reinforced with a cast of notes ranging from caramel to Brazil nuts.

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That just sounds like delicious tea and a great possibility.

heh- That's the one that sounds good to me too! Now that I know the tea thing works, I'm willing to get good tea for it! I have a couple very nice ones a friend just brought back from Dharamsala which might be quite good! Gods know the names, they are written in Tibetian!!

but next- IPA!! Then perhaps Tea IPA! hmm-- TIPA? IPAT?

btw- that flavors site looks dangerous! I could spend WAY lots of money!

Just picked up two of the Assam teas from www.teahaus-annarbor.com which is local to me but ships, and was where I had pulled the descriptions from. I sampled the tea there and I think the Mangalam might work pretty well, perhaps better than the Marangai for a darker beer. I'll resample again, but if the Mangalam does taste better, that would make me a little happier since it's only 6.50 for 50g compared to the Marangai which is 13.70 for 50g.

It was mentioned that the Williamette hops were used due to pricing, was there a different set of hops that might work for the beer? (Kinda hard since I don't know my hop flavors other than the guides, and others may not have the tea to compare). I think I'd lean towards a tea stout for these teas and I'll test it by making tea with tea leaves and hops. I have plenty of time since my fermenters are stuck full of the accidental non-barley wines.

I too would be curious about the matching of tea to hops flavoring. We just bottled the latest- used the proportions from the GF IPA but kept with the tea, rice syrup, and Willammette hops. As our experience grows I'm sure we'll get pickier about hop varieties, but so far we're pretty happy with these, and they are local too. Himself was quite happy with it going in to bottles, and I've caught him drinking a few early too! I have to say, for whatever reason, it fermented like a VERY enthusiastic alien invader! Blew the vapor lock right off twice!! We counted a little over a burp per second for the first 1.5 days.... but then, more fermentables in that recipe!

Next project is to win lotto so I can afford all the fascinating things at the store!

Willamette is a grassy hop. Earthy tones, simple flavor. These types of hops tend to match well when you are shooting for a British style beer.

Keep in mind that a stout or porter style should have zero hop flavor. Hops should only be used for bittering and aroma in these beers. Bittering doesn't matter so much and should largely be ignored until you have nothing else to worry about. For aroma, just go to the store and sniff and ask if that is what your beer should smell like.

Thanks! Good tip! Doubt he'll ever ask me to brew anything with no hop flavour, but I might for myself!

I imagine that he'd go for lots of hops. I think it'd be fun to try a green tea IPA, I imagine there'd be lots of green teas that match up with hops on a lighter beer, maybe even a pilsner style with green tea.

I posted some pictures of mark three in the tea/ipa trials. Well, mark two of that, but our third try overall.

And yeah- green tea! One of those summer Pilsners.. hmm!!

Hrothgar41 said:

I posted some pictures of mark three in the tea/ipa trials. Well, mark two of that, but our third try overall.

And yeah- green tea! One of those summer Pilsners.. hmm!!

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Where do I find the pictures?

I started an album! not much in it, but I'm sure as I progress there will be more!

Can you link us to the album? I couldn't find it in your profile. I'd like to know as well.

let me see if I can figure out how! Hold on...

Well, there are Here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/members/hrothgar41/albums/hrothgar-s-first-steps/


interestingly, when I go to my profile and try to like to the album it says I don't have permission to upload pictures. I started the album by clicking the "my gallery" button on the top right of each page, rather than going to my profile... more exploration is necessary!

You probably need more posts.

lcasanova said:

you probably need more posts.

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25.

Would it be okay to leave the tea in the primary or should the tea be taken out at the end of the boil? My wife has a lot of lose tea (including some listed here) and I'd like to give it a try.

chilort said:

Would it be okay to leave the tea in the primary or should the tea be taken out at the end of the boil? My wife has a lot of lose tea (including some listed here) and I'd like to give it a try.

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Tannins? I don't really know, but isn't that what tea snobs complain about with oversteeping? Is that temperature sensitive?

Just a guess, but I dont see any other reason why primary wouldnt work.

DKershner said:

Oh, and tea has definitely been used a bunch in glutenous recipes I have seen, so it should work one way or another.

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So how exactly do they use it? End of the boil for 5 min? Let it steep at the start with the other steeping grains? During the cool down phase?

That might help answer my earlier question about whether or not I can leave it in the primary.