Hard Iced Tea

[bignick]

This is a recipe I came up with after trying a hard lemonade recipe that I found. It is a very simple recipe, and very delicious too.

This is a 1 gallon recipe, it is very easy to scale up.
-1 Gallon of Arizona Southern Style Real Brewed Sweet Tea
-2 cups of corn sugar
-2 lemons
-1 packet of Redstar Champagne Yeast

Arizona Sweet Tea has No Preservatives.
Make sure there are no preservatives because fermentation will not start with preservatives.

-sanitize a one gallon pitcher which will be used to mix the ingredients before we put it into the carboy.

-zest a lemon to get 2 teaspoons of zest.
Be careful not to get any of the white rind because it will cause off flavors to occur.

-squeeze the 2 lemons into the pitcher.(the seeds will float at the end so you can easily remove them)

-pour the Tea into the pitcher.

-add the two cups of corn sugar and stir very well.
(add more or less corn sugar depending on your target ABV, 2 cups will bring it pretty high.)

-remove the seeds, they should float to the top, but if not it will be fine to leave them in there.

-add the 2 teaspoons of zest.

-pitch the yeast into the pitcher.

-pour the pitcher into the carboy.

-put in the stopper and airlock.

-fill the airlock with cheap vodka.

This will take a few weeks to completely ferment.

I allowed mine to age in the carboy for about 6 weeks.

Then I added wine conditioner, which is just a fermentation stopper and sweetener in one.

It turned out great, my girlfriend and her friends love this stuff.(maybe that 3 way will happen ..... j/k)

If you want to carbonate then just add some corn sugar, mix well, and bottle.

Hope yours turns out as well as mine.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

That looks interesting, just about right for a hot summer day. Thank you for posting that.

 

[jameswardpeterson]

did this turn into a hard tea kind of or something more like a wine considdering the dryness and flavor?

 

[bignick]

it definitely has a wine taste to it considering the yeast that i used. i am experimenting with different yeasts to see what works best in keeping the iced tea taste and feel. I did keep some of this unsweetened and I backsweetened with iced tea, tastes pretty good.

 

[scinerd3000]

any chance you know the gravity readings on this? i had the same though although i think im gonna use beer yeast to keep a bit sweeter finish.

 

[CATFISHER74]

it definitely has a wine taste to it considering the yeast that i used. i am experimenting with different yeasts to see what works best in keeping the iced tea taste and feel. I did keep some of this unsweetened and I backsweetened with iced tea, tastes pretty good.

Did you ever try any other batches with a different yeast?

 

[syd138]

I made a gallon of hard ice tea.

What I did is boiled a gallon of water.. soaked 12 Lipton black tea bags.

Added a cup of sugar and let it go

 

[klcramer]

I wish I would have found this thread a week ago. I boiled a gallon of water added i6 tea bags and 24oz of corn sugar then pitched champagne yeast and its happily bubbling away. I wonder how long this will take and if it will be any good. The OG was 1.064. I'll let you know where it stops and if its any good.

 

[syd138]

There is another thread about this somewhere.. but you will definitely need to back-sweeten it.

The Hard Ice Tea I did tastes like carbonated black tea with alcohol in it..

 

[LCE]

Hi,
I am going to be making a 1 gallon batch of Hard Tea using bignick's recipe and have a quick question or two or three or lots...
I have everything ready to start and would like to get to it sometime this weekend.

When fermentation is complete(2 weeks,give or take)will I need to rack it into a secondary to get it off the lees or can I just leave it in the primary for the extra 6 weeks without a problem?

I also want to back sweeten this batch(for those that hate the taste of Alcohol)so you can imagine it may need to be extra sweet.
Could I get away with just pouring say a 23 ounce can of the same tea into the bottling bucket at bottling time and get away with it or will I need to also add sugar syrup to it as well?(say 2 cups sugar boiled in 1 cup? of water?). Then both added at bottling time?
And last but not least will there be a need to kill off the yeast when doing this?
I will be bottling in beer bottles and capping so maybe a little carbonation wont be bad?
Anyone ever had sparkling Hard Tea...is it better then still?

I haven't decided what yeast I want to use yet. I have Windsor by Danstar,Nottingham by Danstar,Lavlin EC-1118 and Montrachet to choose from. I was thinking maybe the Nottingham? I would like a bit higher ABV but that isn't necessarily a requirement.

I'm only 2 meads and a batch of Apfelwein into all this(and they aren't even done yet)so I'm still trying to grasp a lot of this.

Any help is greatly Appreciated
Thank You

 

[hunhaylou]

I made a batch of this, although I kind of like it the way it is, I will need to back sweeten for all to enjoy. I am in the process of making some hard lemonade as well, I love my Arnold Palmer's, so I will be able to enjoy some Hard Arnie's next summer, or late fall. Thanks for the recipe, it is great.

 

[twistederanch]

I haven't had the chance to try the Arizona recipe yet, but I have been looking for something similar to Twisted Tea and have come up with something close. I tweaked a recipe I found to this:

Hard Iced Tea
6 Gallon Batch

96 tea bags (1 box)
13 cups sugar +/- (to SG 1.060)
1 packet Cote de Blanc yeast (tried with Champagne yeast also, not as good!)
6 tsp yeast nutrient
2 cans frozen lemonade concentrate
6 campden tablets
3 tsp potassium sorbate

Boil some water, add tea bags, cover and seep for at least 1 hour. Squeeze tea bags and discard. Add cooled water to primary fermenter. Add sugar (around 11 cups – 5lbs) to bring to SG 1.060, about 7 to 8 percent ABV. Add water to 6 gal. Start yeast and pitch. Add 3 tsp yeast nutrient.

When done fermenting (1-3 weeks depending on temps), rack off lees, add 2 cans frozen lemonade and taste test. Backsweeten with around 2 cups sugar in warmed tea if neccesary. Add 6 campden tablets and 3 tsp sorbate to a cup or 2 of tea and thoroughly dissolve by stirring to prevent refermenting. Add back into tea.

If tea taste is weak when finished, siphon some tea from carboy, heat up, Seep more tea bags and return to carboy. I don't bother clearing. Wait a couple days to make sure it isn't going to start up again and bottle.

I did have one batch made with champagne yeast carbonate on me. Wasn't bad, I just didn't care for the champagne taste to it.

 

[homebrewer_99]

...maybe that 3 way will happen .....

Knowing women the way I do I can almost guarantee that 3 way will be you, her, and Oprah...

 

[homebrewer_99]

...Squeeze tea bags and discard...

I would think squeezing the tea bag would add tannins to the brew.

 

[carrie_mt]

I'm new to this whole thing and trying to learn as much as I can. Your recipe has caught my interest and I would like to try it but in a smaller batch. I've looked everywhere here for how to "resize" a recipe and can't seem to find an answer. Say I wanted to make a 3 gallon batch do I just 1/2 everything but the yeast?

Thank-you!

 

[demonrichie]

i did that with apfelwein went from 5 to 3 gallon basically taking 2/5ths out of the recipe except for yeast and only difference i found was a bit faster fermentation( dunno for sure i suspect havin more yeast per gallon from start was cause)

 

[carrie_mt]

I tried the recipe posted here from twistederanch - followed it exactly as it was only my second time making something so I'm not up for adventure yet! I didn't sweeten it but I did add the frozen lemonade concentrate at the end. It ended up carbonating on me! Not anything dangerous - it gushes for a little while when opened but once that is done I'm still left with 3/4 of the bottle... It tastes good - not quite sweet enough but I'm assuming that is because of the yeasties eating the sugar after bottling?

I've got a 5gallon batch going right now but I got a tad carried away on the sugar so my SG was 1.72 - yikes! My first batch I mix with a peach ice tea while I drink it and I really like that - I'm trying to figure out how I could mix that up right when I bottle it. Any suggestions? I just use nestea peach ice tea drink mix made up per the bottle and then mix it with the ice tea....

 

[nsw8148]

Holy thread resurrection batman!


I'm running out to Walgreens right now to pick up enough Arizona teas for a 5 gallon batch of bignicks recipe. Probably use 3lbs of dextrose and about a pound of honey like what I do with my Apfelwein.

 

[DaveT]

Just gave this a try, 1 gallon recipe

12 tea bags brought to boil and then steeped for 20 minutes,

removed bags and discarded

Add 2 1/3 cups of sucrose, 1tsp yeast nutrient S.G. 1.051

Ice bath and then added to gallon Jug, topped off with water

pitched 11g Nottingham yeast, capped and shook to mix.

Add Airlock filled with vodka.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

after fermentation stops will rack off yeast, add 1 can thawed lemon juice and back sweeten to my liking. Will update as the progress is made

if lacks tea flavor, I may rack into secondary on top of a few tea bags. or filter through a few bags

I did leave some headspace as I am not sure if the Nottingham will have a lot of krausen, but 15 minutes and airlock activity already!

 

[Buck33]

Then I added wine conditioner, which is just a fermentation stopper and sweetener in one.

It turned out great, my girlfriend and her friends love this stuff.(maybe that 3 way will happen ..... j/k)

If you want to carbonate then just add some corn sugar, mix well, and bottle.

Hope yours turns out as well as mine.

Since you added conditioner wouldn't that make it impossible to carbonate in bottles?

 

[NerdyMarie]

We saw Arizona iced tea gallon jugs on sale this weekend, and picked up a couple to try this.

We got the "Green Tea with Ginsing & Honey" flavor. I'm thinking of trying one with a little lemon (or maybe plain?), and the other with a bunch of ginger added in.

For the ginger one, I'd be looking at it more like using the iced tea as a base for a ginger wine.. any thoughts?

 

[Good4TheCompany]

I love the idea, and though I do occasionally drink Arizona teas still, I am opposed to using it for a brew. When it comes to my daily multiple cup consumption of tea, I go with quality loose leaf, loose leaf all the way!

Now if you wondering what a great resource for loose leaf tea is, it would be www.adagio.com. They usually have great deals, fast shipping, and quite a range of types/flavors to qualities.

So that being said, I plan to do a hard tea of a similar fashion, but I'm looking at using a more unique flavor of tea, once I get around to making it I'll post my recipe and tea flavor.

 

[alex027]

About a month or so ago i started a one gallon batch of this recipe. The store that i bought the tea from didn't have the southern style sweet tea in stock. So i used two half gallon bottles of Snapple iced tea which has sugar as the sweetener.

The ferment started to slow down pretty good so when I went to check the gravity I sampled some. Hot damn it was good.

I soon realized that this one gallon i had was not going to last very long, so i headed back to the store to pick up more ingredients, this time for a six gallon batch. Again the store didn't have the southern style in stock. So i bought the Arizona iced tea with lemon flavour. Once i got it home and started the process i realized the main sweetener was high fructose corn syrup. Im pretty sure that the southern style has the same thing.

I am still new to this so i did some research and a lot of people on this forum seem to think that hfcs does not ferment well, time wise and taste wise.

Has anyone had any ill effects in thier brew with using this?

 

[renshaw]

12 tea bags,
2 blackcurrant tea bags
about a spoon full of "perfect steak"
and a clove.
about 600ish sugar

o.g. 1.070 for one gallon

It smelled lovely, of black current and spice (this is all what perfect stake is)
Fermenting now.

 

[snpr13]

tag

 

[MrJames]

Hey all, any updates to report on how your tea turned out??

 

[snpr13]

Actually what I did was use 3 gallons Arizona Sweet tea and 2 lbs. liquid corn sugar from LHBS and S05 yeast. Fermented for 2 weeks and added yeast killer and back sweetend with 1 can frozen lemonade concentrate. Turned out very well and drinkable although a bit bitter from lemon juice. Next time I would try using 1 can of frozen lemonade concenetrate to sweeten a 5 gal batch and I think it would be perfect. Goes down very smooth SG was a 1.065 I believe and it finished around a 1.01. I do not have info with me currently so I cannot remember exactly what the numbers were.

 

[ashfatboy]

How long does it take to ferment out this tea wine??

 

[snpr13]

After the initial 2 week ferment, once finished I added some potasium metabisulfate to kill any yeast and cold crashed in fridge for a day. I bottled and within a week or 2 in the bottle it was pretty good as I stated in previous post I would go with 5 gal of tea and add corn sugar to raise starting gravity a little higher. I see others saying they would prefer to use a higher grade tea but I am making this for the "girls" and they just like the sweet drink and nothing fancy.

 

[ashfatboy]

What was your start/finish gravity?what alcahol were you aiming for?i think if this tastes like ice tea I need to make a gallon ASAP hahah