Adding tea to secondary

[LouPole]

So im thinking about adding a flavoured tea to secondary. This is my first time brewing with tea. I have a 5 gallon batch but will be splitting it into 5 test batches of different ingredients. Tea being one. Its been fermenting now for 9 days. Should I add tea a day or so before bottling? How much should I add? Sanitizing? Should I steep or add the tea leaves to secondary as is? Looking for your opinions. Its a golden ale.

 

[D20]

I made a pale ale with Earl Grey tea earlier in the year and it turned out to be really good. My wife is a big tea lover and we made it as an experiment to see how it would turn out. I hadn’t ever had a beer with tea in it before and there aren’t a lot of resources out there, so it was a bit of a shot in the dark. But it turned out great and I’m planning to brew it again here in a few weeks. Here are some things I learned or did with the beer:

-Start with the absolute best quality loose leaf tea you can get. Using bagged tea from the grocery store isn’t probably what you’re after. We ordered white tip earl grey from Tea Source in Minneapolis and it was fantastic.

-We just put 2oz of loose leaf in a hop bag and put it in after fermentation was done just like you would dry hop. We left it in for a week, but you should taste some samples along the way to see if the flavor is getting where you want. We didn’t do anything to sanitize the tea FYI.

-When you “dry hop”with the tea, you’re gonna get more of the aroma compounds of the tea and less of the flavor. To compensate for this, we made a strong tea concentrate by brewing some tea and adding it to the beer at kegging to up the tea flavor.

-This article and Chop and Brew video were the best (and almost only) resource I found: http://chopandbrew.com/episodes/chop-brew-episode-38-homebrewing-with-tea/

https://www.teasource.com/blogs/beyond-the-leaf/64236547-water-malt-hops-yeast-and-tea

Hope that helps some!

 

[LouPole]

I made a pale ale with Earl Grey tea earlier in the year and it turned out to be really good. My wife is a big tea lover and we made it as an experiment to see how it would turn out. I hadn’t ever had a beer with tea in it before and there aren’t a lot of resources out there, so it was a bit of a shot in the dark. But it turned out great and I’m planning to brew it again here in a few weeks. Here are some things I learned or did with the beer:

-Start with the absolute best quality loose leaf tea you can get. Using bagged tea from the grocery store isn’t probably what you’re after. We ordered white tip earl grey from Tea Source in Minneapolis and it was fantastic.

-We just put 2oz of loose leaf in a hop bag and put it in after fermentation was done just like you would dry hop. We left it in for a week, but you should taste some samples along the way to see if the flavor is getting where you want. We didn’t do anything to sanitize the tea FYI.

-When you “dry hop”with the tea, you’re gonna get more of the aroma compounds of the tea and less of the flavor. To compensate for this, we made a strong tea concentrate by brewing some tea and adding it to the beer at kegging to up the tea flavor.

-This article and Chop and Brew video were the best (and almost only) resource I found: http://chopandbrew.com/episodes/chop-brew-episode-38-homebrewing-with-tea/

https://www.teasource.com/blogs/beyond-the-leaf/64236547-water-malt-hops-yeast-and-tea

Hope that helps some!

Thanks for your help. I will be transferring it this weekend.

 

[LouPole]

Thanks for your help. I will be transferring it this weekend.

For anyone thinking of doing this. I had 4 oz of the tea steep in muslin bag for 36 hours in secondary. Depending on the flavor of tea and flavor you want in the beer will depend how long you leave it obviously. There was a strong tea taste after 36hours for mine. I wouldnt recommend any longer than that if you are adding to secondary. I used davids tea(honey bee). Its carbonating as we speak. Will update in a few weeks.

 

[D20]

How’d it turn out?

 

[LouPole]

How’d it turn out?

I didnt like it but a few of my friends did. It was a little too sweet for me. There probably wont be a next time for that one. Lol. But I would recommend adding a little less tea if you decide doing this. And maybe if I tried a different tea it might have been better. However, the coffee one from the same batch of Golden ale tasted amazing.