Another tea-based mead I (wholly NSFW link) tossed off recently in the Caribbean.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 8 bags of grocery store Earl Grey tea from O Organics
  • 2 lbs of Kirkland clover honey
  • 1 tsp yeast nutrient
  • ½ tsp yeast energizer
  • ½ pack of Lalvin 71B-1122, rehydrated in 100-degree water for 20 minutes

Yield: The beverage resembles a 1-gallon batch quite closely.

Instructions

I boiled 2 quarts of partially filtered tap water, turned off the heat, and steeped the tea bags for several hours, then removed them. I added the honey, yeast energizer, and yeast nutrient to a sanitized glass carboy, added the tea and filtered water to the 1-gallon line, then aerated for approximately 10 minutes by capping, shaking, and uncapping the carboy repeatedly. Pitched the yeast and done. I read the starting gravity at 1.042, which appears to be incorrect based on other batches; I likely hadn't mixed the batch thoroughly when I drew the sample.

I bottled this batch on 12/26/16 to free up a carboy. The total yield was four 12-oz bottles and three 22-oz bottles; the final gravity was 0.998.

Observations

  • 2016-11-21T22:00:00: The mead has been fermenting away quietly, though the cooler outside temperatures have reduced yeast activity markedly compared to our summer batches.