How do I ferment homemade brewed tea - a black tea

Question

Does anyone have an idea of how to brew a homemade tea?

The idea is to take tea leaves and boil the water to get the tea base . What do Ido from here???

Answer 1

I had a pretty decent hard iced tea made by a fellow homebrewer one time. Don't remember his exact recipe, but it consisted of fresh brewed organic black tea, a whole bunch of brown sugar and some yeast nutrient (and yeast, of course!). 1 lb of brown sugar per gallon of tea should yield a brew of about 4.5% ABV.

Here is a good list of fermentables you could use with your tea.

Answer 2

You can't ferment straight tea, because the yeast won't have anything to eat. You need to add some kind of fermentable (sugar, honey, etc) and some yeast. You're probably better off taking a recipe for something that's already fermentable (beer, wine, mead) and adding your tea to it for flavor.

Answer 3

Basically, you need something with sugar for the yeast to eat to ferment anything.

If you're trying to make Kombucha, you just need sweet tea and a starter SCOBY. Here is a good how-to A scoby is a Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY). The yeast eat the sugar, making alcohol, and the bacteria eat the alcohol to make a vinegary tasting beverage.

If you're trying to brew tea like you would beer or wine, I'm not sure how that will turn out taste-wise. Seems like the yeast you would use for beer and wine would make a weird tasting brew, using sweet tea.

Answer 4

I made a tea brew with both white sugar and with brown sugar. So far only tried the brown sugar. I added 6 tea bags and 500g of sugar to 2 litres, making about 12% abv. I recommend adding less tea as it can become very bitterish/strong almost like a vodka in a weird way. It does get you drunk fast tho but only good for shots. If I were you I'd try it with about 100g of sugar per 1 litre to get an Abv of 5%ish and also use less tea bags maybe 2 teabag per 1 litre so that it is a drinkable brew. Back sweeten at the end and it should be all good

Answer 5

I have done it with black tea, lemon, and table sugar. Use a champagne yeast and expect a long slow ferment.

Answer 6

I'm a total noob at wine making, but i think you would need wine or champagne yeast and yeast nutrient to start it since tea leaves wouldn't have much unless you want to mix it in with a juice. Not sure if you know about airtight containers with an airlock but thats needed to for making in general.

An air lock is not necessary. Use a screw on lid but leave it loose enough so the gas can escape and keep the gnats out

Answer 7

I'm a total noob at wine making, but i think you would need wine or champagne yeast and yeast nutrient to start it since tea leaves wouldn't have much unless you want to mix it in with a juice. Not sure if you know about airtight containers with an airlock but thats needed to for making in general.