bottling night HORROR

All is not lost. A little water in your finished porter won't hurt anything. As for the tea beer, the bitterness will fade some, and if you are lucky will be about as bitter as a "bitter." Many years ago I made a "tea beer" where all the added water was tea water. It was drinkable in about a month of warm days. I don't recommend it however, mixing alcohol and caffeine is self defeating.

Next time you want to make an Earl Grey beer add bergamot oil. It is what gives the Earl his distinctive flavor.

Mellow

David M. Taylor wrote:

Tea contains a lot of Tannin which gives it a dry taste (not acidic and not alcoholic), tannin is common in red wines. Tannin will increase the positive effects of aging and in some case precipitate out. Tea is commonly used in Country Wines and Meads to add both Flavour and Tannin. I suspect that Tannin is not something that is commonly wanted in a beer, and this is probably what is causing your problem with the taste. Ken

Geez, how big is your siphon?! I've done this myself, but with SANITIZER, not clean water. It had zero impact on the beer. I think you'll be fine.

Scott

snipped

I can't speak for the tea (it doesn't sound like a bad idea, but I'll take your word for it).

I've been using plain water to start the siphon with no ill effects. I just put it in the bottling bucket. Using well water with no chemicals added. Only precaution I take is to rinse it well with sanitizer before I fill the tube.

Hey, YOU put it in there, don't blame somebody else! ;) I've never used tea in beer, but I coulda told ya not to do it anyway!

------->Denny

Better luck next time. In the meantime have a couple good ones and then one of the not so good ones. Even if you taste the difference you probably won't care.

Ah yes, a spoonful of sugar (substitute here "a good bottle of homebrew") helps the medicine (bad ones) go down.

If I brew it, I drink it.

snip

I should tell you about the time I ended up with 5 gallons of beer on the kitchen floor of a new house. I soaked most up with towels, squeezed the beer out and bottled.

Luckily those sort of things are few and far inbetween.

RT

Someone had a story here last year that involved beer in the kitchen light fixture. That was the horror story.

Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company

I've had beer on the ceiling before, including splashes on the light fixture. Maybe the story was mine. The moral of the story: Don't bottle before the beer is done fermenting!!

how do we spell neadenthal.

I thought you guys were talking about TEF beer, not TEA beer. I have never tried tef beer. EARL grey TEA, is like totally unknown to me. I know when tea leaves fall into meandering streams in the forests, it tends to sterilize and kill off anything in the streams.

Here in canada, there is a new beer style coming out which is beer with caffeine. I have no particular urge for a caffeine buzz, if I have a few extra beers.

Let me know how the experiment goes for you though. Also would like to know how the effects go. pleasantly happy and ready for bed, and being bug eyed looking at the ceiling, does not sound like a total thrill. Butt read a book or bug your partner.

Most of us with years of brewing behind us have stuffed up mightily at some stage, usually in the early days when all the books have been read & all opinions canvassed .......but little real experience! I find most brewers tend to forget this but for me those early days were often very disappointing. I once added half a bar of solid liquorice after accepting some English book advice written God knows when. Yes the brew tasted like shit, well liquid liquorice actually. Down the sink it went where several early brews of mine had similarly been despatched generally after some unknown primary fermentation infection had occured. In those days it was open topped brewing & amazingly some of my buddies always got acceptable results whilst I struggled. Interestingly when I changed address & recommenced brewing in an outside potting shed everything more or less started to go sweetly. I never figured it out. Maybe some old timers will share some of their c*ck-ups for a laugh. Good luck,. Pete

"David M. Taylor" wrote in message news:fJy1e.17707$ snipped-for-privacy@fe04.lga...

I've had thoughts of small amounts of spicy chai tea in a wit or other belgian. Anyone have any experience with that?

tea or teh. same pronunciation. sterilizing and extracting the product caffeine from tea, MIGHT be time consuming. and the tannic acid would cause differences to the PH factor. does your beer yeast live well in an acid environment. you might need to change to a wine yeast. it is able to cope ith high tannic acid.

i would imagine your final product would resemble apple cider. the hops and the tea would be competing against each other. no doubt. good documentation is manditory. hey make small portions til you get the mix right. would like to hear your final results though. dug88

tea is like tea or coffee teh is like wheat or teh

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:19:24 GMT, "peterlonz" said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

Some kind of mold or bacteria in the old place, most likely. Beer is a lot more sensitive to those things than even asthmatic people are.

I've heard that using Gurana for the caffeine insted of tea works a bit better.