Tinctures and tea flavored ciders

[HephaestusXiled]

Hello everyone, I am new to this thread website and a novice at brewing and looking to expand my learning with ciders. I have made a few batches from the Brewers Best kits which turned out great but I am wanting to start making them my own. I'm looking to do two new batches, the first a mojito cider with mint and lime flavorings and the second a tea flavored cider.

I have been doing some research about how to tackle the mojito one and learned about tinctures. I'm wondering if someone has experience with making tinctures that I could talk with in the process. What I learned is to focus on the zest of the lime but am I using a zester to make dust of the rine and put it in the high proof liquor or an I peeling the rine like an orange and soaking that whole? Should I be concerned on the type of mint, and should I muddle it before soaking it? My batches are usually 6 to 6.5 gallon batches so how much of this tinctures should I make, and if I'm adding a lot is this going to drastically increase my ABV that it will harm the product or the yeast since I like to naturally carbonate (had too much inconsistency with the carbonation tablets).

For the tea, I am unsure if I should be steeping the tea leave in say secondary as I'm afraid it will be difficult to stay on top of it to prevent too much tea infusion. I'm also afraid of brewing tea normally with boiling water as this makes the tea bitter and if I add that directly to primary or secondary I'm afraid it'll make the cider bitter and gross. Trying to figure out how to sanitize and extract a tea flavor that will be strong enough to make out in the finished product. Any helpful guidance?

 

[CKuhns]

Can't help with tinctures sorry.

But teas if you steep (not boil) fo4 no more than 10 minutes you tend to not get the bitter flavors.

I have used Hibiscus Tea and orange Pecoh with pretty good success. Although have moved away from them lately as I find oak medium toast French oak in se ondary does a better job of imparting the tannens I prefer.

 

[Raptor99]

For mint, I much perfer peppermint over spearmint. I pour boiling water over my mint leaves, then let it steep for 30 minutes. After I strain the mint tea and add it to the primary I steep the leaves again in the same way to get out more flavor. I don't add the leaves to my fermentation vessel.

I have added orange zest directly to my primary (in a brew bag) as well as adding it directly to the secondary.

The only tincture that I have made so far is cinammon/cloves/allspice, which I added to some spiced mead. To make the tincture, I put the spices in a small jar and covered them with vodka. I kept it on the shelf, and shook it up every day. After a few weeks, the vodka had picked up a nice spice flavor, so I added some to a orange spice mead.

 

[HephaestusXiled]

Can't help with tinctures sorry.

But teas if you steep (not boil) fo4 no more than 10 minutes you tend to not get the bitter flavors.

I have used Hibiscus Tea and orange Pecoh with pretty good success. Although have moved away from them lately as I find oak medium toast French oak in se ondary does a better job of imparting the tannens I prefer.

This is very good suggestions for me. I like the types of tea you used and I will look more into those as options. I will take note on the time of steeping as this may help.

 

[HephaestusXiled]

For mint, I much perfer peppermint over spearmint. I pour boiling water over my mint leaves, then let it steep for 30 minutes. After I strain the mint tea and add it to the primary I steep the leaves again in the same way to get out more flavor. I don't add the leaves to my fermentation vessel.

I have added orange zest directly to my primary (in a brew bag) as well as adding it directly to the secondary.

The only tincture that I have made so far is cinammon/cloves/allspice, which I added to some spiced mead. To make the tincture, I put the spices in a small jar and covered them with vodka. I kept it on the shelf, and shook it up every day. After a few weeks, the vodka had picked up a nice spice flavor, so I added some to a orange spice mead.

Wow this is awesome detail in both processes. I will take some notes from this and try it out!

 

[Wickedwinewitch]

For any tincture using rinds you can either zest or peel...but you dont want any of the white pith. The pith will make it bitter. For lemons and limes I use my potato peeler to peel the outside rind and this way avoid the pith. I use the peeler because it's easier to strain it.peels are good for other things too. I usually make limoncello by filling a Mason jar with lemon peels adding 1/2 cup sugar and fill with vodka. Shake once a day for 3 weeks and then strain.

 

[Rish]

Hello everyone, I am new to this thread website and a novice at brewing and looking to expand my learning with ciders. I have made a few batches from the Brewers Best kits which turned out great but I am wanting to start making them my own. I'm looking to do two new batches, the first a mojito cider with mint and lime flavorings and the second a tea flavored cider.

I have been doing some research about how to tackle the mojito one and learned about tinctures. I'm wondering if someone has experience with making tinctures that I could talk with in the process. What I learned is to focus on the zest of the lime but am I using a zester to make dust of the rine and put it in the high proof liquor or an I peeling the rine like an orange and soaking that whole? Should I be concerned on the type of mint, and should I muddle it before soaking it? My batches are usually 6 to 6.5 gallon batches so how much of this tinctures should I make, and if I'm adding a lot is this going to drastically increase my ABV that it will harm the product or the yeast since I like to naturally carbonate (had too much inconsistency with the carbonation tablets).

For the tea, I am unsure if I should be steeping the tea leave in say secondary as I'm afraid it will be difficult to stay on top of it to prevent too much tea infusion. I'm also afraid of brewing tea normally with boiling water as this makes the tea bitter and if I add that directly to primary or secondary I'm afraid it'll make the cider bitter and gross. Trying to figure out how to sanitize and extract a tea flavor that will be strong enough to make out in the finished product. Any helpful guidance?

For a 5 gallon batch, I zest (no pith!) enough citrus to get 1 ounce, then cover with vodka by about an inch. I then shake it a couple of times a day for a week. I then add this to the bottling bucket, tasting as I add to get the citrus level I want. You could do a bigger batch of tincture if you want it really citrusy. It'll keep well if you don't use it all in this batch. Just pour it off the zest and store it in the fridge. Same method will work for mint. Good luck!