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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Recipe Discussion --> Experimenting with Teas & Tinctures

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mchrispen
Bastrop, TX
485 Posts


I thought I would put this here based on the recent Tripel review... and get folks thoughts.

An interesting conversation occurred while judging with Ninkasi winner Mark Schoppe here at the NHC Regionals. Mark throws out no beer - rather uses it as an opportunity to experiment with blending and spicing. That is - he brews very clean beers - so few have major flaws. But after doing the BOS for the wood aged category, we spend the last hour of the competition blending a variety of very special beers - and I was shocked at the improvements. That is not to say the beers were not great - an amazing flight was presented and we struggled to place them appropriately. But the blends were fantastic! We are even discussing a 'Split Personality' portion of this year's Inquisition where two beers are randomly selected and presented as a blend to the judges. Might even have the trophy's cut right in half so each winner gets half :)

This got me to thinking. I have the saison that dropped during primary into freezing range - and recovered it - but the beer is pretty bland. Not the spicy phenol yumminess I have come to expect from that recipe. So I hit a local exotic tea shop and bought two small packages of tea. A teaspoon, more or less representative of the whole of the tea mixes (there were big bits of dried fruit and star anise, etc.) went into two 1 gallon carboys, along with a teaspoon of honey (to kick some fermentation and prevent oxygenation). These fermented for 5 days and went into cold crash. The teas are strongly flavored - so the extracted aroma and flavor is very forward - but will blend these back to taste into kegs.

I also mentioned tinctures - and use both a whipping canister with NOS and the simple cover with vodka and shake methods. These I tend to use in entries that are missing some critical element - or when I want to highlight a specific feature... like spicy heat. I picked this up (especially the NOS canister) from a NHC presentation and Denny/Drew's Experimental Homebrew book.

Anyone else do this? Tips on what works and doesn't?




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by mchrispen

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


I'm trying to understand what the first paragraph has to do with the second.  At first you're talking about blending, then you're talking about using flavor additions.

I suppose I sort of see what you're getting at ... but I'm not really on board with it.  This reminds me of something Jamil said about fruit beer.  He said he noticed the tendency of brewers to try and salvage bad beer by blending fruit in with it to hide the flavor.  You can't make good beer by starting with a bad base.  You just end up making crappy fruit beer.

Now, I can get on board with the idea of slightly switching up a beer with post fermentation additions to play to it's strengths.  Actually, the idea of a roobios saison sounds pretty good to me now that you mention it, but I'd only add it in if something in the initial tastings screams "that it would pair well with tea"!  Don't bother wasting good beer or good ingredients trying to make crappy beer less crappy.  Dump it, consider it a lesson, and move on. 

As an aside, how did you sanitize the tea?




Posted 34 days ago.

mchrispen
Bastrop, TX
485 Posts


Yeah sorry - confusing lead in. Was really thinking about flavor and transforming it. Schoppe has an interesting palette and an innate skill at looking what can be added to push a beer over the top.

Not sure I am on board with dumping that saison - it was still a good beer, just not what I expected. More wit than saison I guess is the way to describe it. I do agree that flawed beer - if it is offputting - should be dumped. Not a problem - just did that with a perry cider kit that I should have NOT added their crappy backsweetening packet to - tastes like diet bland something.

The teas are adding very interesting aromas and flavors. As for the sanitation of the tea - didn't. I put finished beer onto it and figure if it develops something - so be it. Then I might consider dumping it or letting it ride out a bit and see where it heads. My only real concern was that one used a green tea base, and the other a black tea. So tannins will come into play. I got my 2.5 gallon kegs today - so tomorrow is blending day.

I have not had roobios tea yet, but hear a lot about it. It's a red tea right? What does it taste like?




Posted 34 days ago.

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


Ok, then I think we're saying the  same thing.  The beer isn't necessarily bad, just not what you wanted and now you're dressing it up to try and play up what you have.  That's fine.  Sometimes it pays to be flexible like that.

Roobios is weird, but I like it.  I'd say it's mostly nutty, but almost in a fruity kind of way, like macadamia nuts.  There's also some notes of toffee, vanilla, and stone fruits roaming around in there.  Really hard to describe unless you've had some.




Posted 34 days ago.

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