Metheglin or Turkish Tea (mead from tea)

[MiachMcD77]

Hi everyone!

Very amateur mead maker here. So, in advance, please excuse my inexperience or lack of proper vocabulary.

I have been experimenting with home brewing mead off and on for the past couple of years, often meeting with moderate or better success!

However, I recently made three 1 gallon batches of Turkish Tea. Each gallon using a different type of tea. Two of my batches went off superbly.

However one batch has not started and it's been a week, well within the temperature range of the selected yeast (WLP 080 Cream Ale Yeast from White Labs). There has been no change in initial gravity, and no bubbling.
I used the BOMM recipe but instead of water used a double brewed tea which had cooled to room temperature before pitching yeast.
The tea used is called Bengal Spice and contains the following ingredients:Cinnamon, roasted chicory, roasted carob, natural spice and vanilla flavors with other natural flavors, ginger, cardamom, black pepper, cloves and nutmeg.
I did not take a PH reading, but the tea doesn't taste particularly acidic.

So barring that the PH levels are the cause; I'm asking if anyone knows any of the ingredients of the tea to inhibit the yeast from fermenting? I've tried looking into each, but to no conclusive results.

Thank you!

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Miach McD77 - and welcome. Nope.. and i successfully made a wine from Bengal spice tea (one version using black tea and one using herbal tea). If you boiled the tea then you boiled off all or most of the O2 in the water. So I assume that you aerated the must before you pitched the yeast, Yes?

 

[MiachMcD77]

I use an aerator to mix the honey in, which happened after the tea had steeped and cooled just before pitching the yeast. But your comment about boiling got me thinking, this was the only batch of the 3 where we boiled the water to steep the tea in. The other 2 batches were steeped in water heated but not quite to boiling. Maybe I need to spend more time aerating.
Thank you.

 

[theblackwolf]

have you added nutrient or energizer, and do you have either?

 

[bernardsmith]

Wine and mead makers tend to aerate several times a day during active fermentation. The yeast will take up the O2 without any problem - and mead ain't beer. There is no issue of oxidation during this time.

 

[MiachMcD77]

have you added nutrient or energizer, and do you have either?

I have added nutrients at the 1/3rd and 2/3rd sugar breaks.

What is energizer? If it was part of the recipe I likely added it. But otherwise I don''t know what qualifies.

 

[MiachMcD77]

Wine and mead makers tend to aerate several times a day during active fermentation. The yeast will take up the O2 without any problem - and mead ain't beer. There is no issue of oxidation during this time.

Yeah I aerate a couple times a day to release CO2 and especially before dropping in nutrients. Otherwise its a guaranteed geyser.

 

[bernardsmith]

Yeah I aerate a couple times a day to release CO2 and especially before dropping in nutrients. Otherwise its a guaranteed geyser.

Only a volcano if you don't dissolve the powder in water. The particles nucleate the CO2 that saturates the mead (or wine) and when nucleated the gas can easily collect and so erupt pushing ahead a column of liquid that then rifles through the narrow neck of a carboy. Dissolve the powder and you don't get nucleation. Use a bucket as your primary and you don't have eruptions.

 

[MiachMcD77]

Only a volcano if you don't dissolve the powder in water. The particles nucleate the CO2 that saturates the mead (or wine) and when nucleated the gas can easily collect and so erupt pushing ahead a column of liquid that then rifles through the narrow neck of a carboy. Dissolve the powder and you don't get nucleation. Use a bucket as your primary and you don't have eruptions.

Thanks for the tip! I'm assuming it doesn't take much water and therefor has a nearly (if not entirely) negligible change in potential ABV, correct?

 

[bernardsmith]

absolutely... I use enough water to dissolve the powder - a couple of tablespoons (more... or less).