After beer and coffee, tea is my next favorit tonic. I brew 10 gallon batches but sort of only want to add tea to half of the yield for my next session. So that would rule out steeping it in the wort at flameout. I know a guy who brewed a half gallon of strong chai and added it to a brown during secondary, and it turned out great. It didn't thin it out. I thought, that could be an option. But more recently I've wondered about brewing up a half gallon of cooled sweetened tea and adding it at pitching time. Got the idea while making kombucha. Seems like it should work. But it got me wondering. Has anyone tried this?
There is no potential dilution issue if you add dry tea leaves to the boil at flame out. That's how I do it.
I "dry" teabagged in secondary one time and I hated the results. But I think I used too much -- I think it was like 7 or 8 teabags in 5 gallons, something like that. I'd go easier on it if I ever tried it again, which I won't.
You can sweeten the tea if you want, but it won't add sweetness to the beer, if that's what you're expecting. Sucrose and other simple sugars are 100% fermentable.
Choose your tea carefully and try to find a style of tea that will mix well with the style of beer, then brew it to perfection before adding it to the primary. Also, only add about 1/2 of what you want to. Then wait, take a sample, and you can add more if you think it isn't enough. For example, I tried making a chaI.P.A once and I added waaaay too much. Plus I threw the tea bags into the boiling wort. It tasted like hot garbage mixed with black jelly beans. I tried again and used Darjeeling tea in a maltier brew using the process above and it turned out pretty good. definitely something I'd make again. Or you can always try putting your tea leaves in a hop back, which is something I've wanted to do for a while. I just need a hopback.
Here are a few thoughts... Each category of tea (green, black, oolong, etc) has an optimal steeping temperature and duration. If you leave the leaves in too long or steep too hot, you will extract tannins and other compounds that will give you undesirable flavors. One option is to transfer some of the hot wort to a smaller vessel (and monitor the temp for best match with selected tea) and steep the tea in that wort, cool it and add to whatever fermentor is supposed to have the tea. Another approach might be to brew a stronger batch of tea separately (using water), cool it and add to the the fermentor of your choice. This approach would probably require some number crunching to make sure the gravity is not thrown off. I'm looking forward to hearing some results! Best of luck to you!
I have been thinking about a green tea grisette lately. I was just going to add a quart of strong brewed chopwood green at bottling.
I've only brewed one beer with tea, but my advice would be to be conservative with how long you seep the tea/how much you use. I took a stab at making an english pale ale using jasmine tea and fuggles. I seeped the loose jasmine tea into the wort during the boil, but it was really overwhelming when it came time to the finished beer. I was looking for an accent of jasmine to accompany the maltiness but it just tasted like over seeped tea.
anyone ever used chrysanthemum tea at the flame out? i would really only be using it in a hop/tea spider for added color and texture. very small amount. i remember reading somewhere that the chrysanthemum flower has an averse effect on alcohol. just wondering if it would ruin the batch or not. i import a lot of teas from china and taiwan and have always wondered how well they would work with an ale yeast.
Not something that I've heard before. Maybe you are thinking about Geranium? http://www.bcawa.ca/winemaking/flaws.htm#Geranium character Chrysanthemum Wine is quite a thing in China, so there is some precidence.
We added chrysanthemum and jasmine to a wine-barrel-aged sour, turned out pretty weird: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2014/07/solera-pull-no-2-straight-and-on-flowers.html Also brewed a mild with Earl Grey tea (added the strong tea to taste at bottling): http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2014/06/earl-grey-mild-ale-recipe-and-tasting.html
As I may have said earlier (I don't feel like checking) I made a similar brew to your Earl Grey mild, but mine was a Burton with Darjeeling and I thought it turned out rather nice. The beer and the tea need to compliment each other.
