Hard Iced Tea

I've never heard it referred to as hard iced tea, but I've made some tea wines - maybe that's the same thing? It's just a batch of tea and sugar fermented like most typical wines. I only have one that's ready to drink and I think it's pretty good.

I got this recipe from someone on the brewing list. Since it is a wine recipe, I thought I would post it here incase anyone is interested. It seems pretty simple.

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--------------------------------------------- Okay, I like the strane. I concocted a "Sweet Tea Wine" It has just been racked for the second time. When I racked it from the primary I tasted it and normally a wine so young is very harsh, but this was pretty good. This is the first time this recipe has ever been made, so I am sure I will tweak it. The recipe is for one gallon.

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Peal the yellow off the outside of the lemons with a potato peeler, do not peel the white (it will add a bitter taste). Add the yellow skin from lemons and squeeze the lemons into 3 quarts of water. Add the 50 tea bags and bring to a boil. Then take a spoon and make sure all the tea flavor you can get out of the tea bags is out, then remove the tea bags. Remove from heat and add sugar and stir in.

Pour into primary add remaining ingredients except for pectic enzyme and yeast. Add water to 1 gallon. Stir well. Cover primary and set aside

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I think a decent way to go about this would be to use turbo yeast and a liquer making kit... you could ferment a flavourless "wine" and then dilute it with some strong brewed tea, lemon juice, and sugar to taste. The advantage to this method is that you can keep most of the tea and lemon flavours, and you can use the charcoal finings that (I think) are included with the liquer kit to have a clean base.

Do you put in lemon? I can't imagine it w/o lemon....

As an experiment I fermented some sugar water a few weeks ago, it is clarifying now. I had been wondering what to do with is because I don't exactly want to drink it but don't wan to through it away either. Perhaps I can try adding some flavors to it. What would be a good thing to flavor it with that I can buy from a store? Tea is one suggestion.

I think using active charcoal fining (or run it through a series of brita filters) would be a good idea before flavouring and sweetening. You could up the alcohol strength by freezing it and removing some of the ice as well.

You could split the batch up and make a couple different flavours. A couple of the LHBS sell liqueur extracts, those would be ideal for flavouring your 'wash'. HTH

Nope. No lemon, just the usual acid blend.

That is what is known to old timers as "Popskull". You can mix in anything from quality fruit juices/extracts to Kool-Aid. Howabout a nice Hawaiian Punch??? :-) Bob<

It could happen. I have a good juicer, so I'll prolly use lemon anyway. Thanks!!!!