[molokomalt]

Hallo,

I am very curious as to who has had success brewing with tea.  I am experimenting with some Belgian strains and would love to have some insight about brewing beer with tea before diving in.  A few questions:

1. What kind of tea do you use?
2. How much do you add?
3. When do you add it?
4. Any insight as to it's flavor in high and low gravity?
5. Do you add tea leaves or make the tea before adding?

Cheers y'all

[Stevie]

Check Chop and Brew on YouTube. Chip interviewed a brewer that uses a lot of tea. She was actually a tea expert that became a homebrewer.

[Iliff Ave]

I used oolong tea in a ~1.050 rice adjunct lager. I cold steeped 4 oz of tea in a French press for about 36-48 hours and added to 5 gallons of finished beer. The tea character is pretty strong but the base beer is very transparent. I added sake as well which muddles the perception of the tea a bit. If I attempt again, I will cut the tea down to 2-3 oz but would consider 4 in a darker, stronger, more complex beer.

Definitely choose your tea wisely. The oolong has a nice herbal, fruity character but I almost used a green tea which I think would have added an undesirable grassy, vegetal flavor after tasting the two teas side by side. 

[reverseapachemaster]

Rules for using coffee in beer are pretty much the same for tea. You can add the tea in all the same ways and should be mindful of contact time to avoid extraction of undesirable flavors and too much tannin.

Info I've gleaned from breweries that make good beers with tea are to target 0.5 oz tea to 1 gal of beer with a cold preparation for 24-36 hours. Adjust those volumes for the boldness of flavor in the beer and tea respectively. It's better to use a decent amount of tea and pull it out of the beer early than use too little and let it sit too long to try to get more flavor extraction.

[Steve Ruch]

A few years ago I brewed a smoked porter with only one pound of rauch malt that was a bit long in the tooth and the smoke was practically none existent.  I added two strongly brewed cups of smoked tea. It turned out okay, but the next smoked beer I make I'll use plenty of fresh rauch malt.