Tea in home brewing as a finings
King Queen
I brew a lot of my own beer. Prevoiusly I've always added a cup of
strong tea at the barelling stage, irrespective of what I'm making, as
I've heard that it helps the brew to clear quicker (a la Ian Ball) and
I'm not up for adding bits of horses hooves or sturgeon's swim bladder.
However having finished reading Wheeler's brewing guide it says tannin
is a bad addition and creates offtastes in beer. Given that Ball
suggests a 25 minute boil (!) I suspect that Wheeler may be right but
then I know Wheeler tends to be a bit of an "over"perfectionist!
What do you people think of the practise of adding tea to help clear it?
Does it make any difference? Does it spoil the beer significantly? I
know that all beers should clear eventually anyway but I'm an impatient
guy!
Cheers
Doug
--
To e-mail me remove .lartsspammers. Homepage http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
"King Queen and/or the infiltator are wankers IMHO. Net nannies are scum
but you two are absolute scum." - Carstairs McKraken
JS Newby
news:3udi4vs3g3hjaith0...@4ax.com...
>
> What do you people think of the practise of adding tea to help clear it?
> Does it make any difference? Does it spoil the beer significantly? I
> know that all beers should clear eventually anyway but I'm an impatient
> guy!
>
the flavour adversely (but I admit I haven't tried it myself). You seem to
be doing it just to speed up the clearing so you can drink the beer more
quickly. Even if it does clear the beer quickly and doesn't affect the
flavour, surely you want to leave the beer to mature for at least a short
while before drinking it, as it won't taste as good straight away? Why not
make your next batch of beer before you finish the current batch, so you can
afford to wait for it to clear naturally and won't have to resort to such
desperate measures? ;-)
Dr Drew Whitworth
> Hello,
> What do you people think of the practise of adding tea to help clear it?
> Does it make any difference? Does it spoil the beer significantly? I
> know that all beers should clear eventually anyway but I'm an impatient
> guy!
Now then Doug, how's tha doing lad?
And when do I get to taste any of this stuff anyway (with tea, or not)?
:-)
--
"In the event of a terrorist attack, do not panic. Continue to work
and spend. On no account Blame Your Government, nor Question Authority.
Follow these instructions and everything will be OK."
pe...@vob.net
after about 3 days' fermentation into gallon demijohns fitted with
airlocks. After a couple of days the fermentation finishes and the
beer falls bright almost overnight - you can see it happen . If after
a couple more days it is still cloudy then add finings .
IMO the use of demijohns makes the beer ready one or two weeks earlier
than if you just carry out the fermentation in a bin.And there is much
less risk of spoilage.
King Queen
wrote:
>Yuk! Doesn't sound a good idea to me as I would have thought it would affect
>the flavour adversely (but I admit I haven't tried it myself). You seem to
>be doing it just to speed up the clearing so you can drink the beer more
>quickly. Even if it does clear the beer quickly and doesn't affect the
>flavour, surely you want to leave the beer to mature for at least a short
>while before drinking it, as it won't taste as good straight away?
I always leave it at least 6 weeks to mature anyway, perhaps the tea is
unnecessary.
>Why not
>make your next batch of beer before you finish the current batch, so you can
>afford to wait for it to clear naturally and won't have to resort to such
>desperate measures? ;-)
We must be telepathic, I've just bought a separate, 20 litre "tester"
barrel so I can do exactly that.
Tell you what, the beer I've got in the 40 pinter at the moment had the
tea treatment - I'll make exactly the same in the 20 pinter minus the
tea and see if it makes any difference :-)
--
To e-mail me remove .lartsspammers. Homepage http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
"How can we speak of the urgency of global crises without inducing
either passivity and hopelessness or unrealistic escapism?"
R. R. Ruether
King Queen
In much the same manner as making cider?
I'm not up for using finings however, this is strictly vegan beer...
--
To e-mail me remove .lartsspammers. Homepage http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
"For years, Bush Senior gave Saddam loans and sold him advanced
technology with clear applications for weapons of mass destruction."
http://www.schnews.org.uk
King Queen
<drew.delete...@cslin-gps.csunix.comp.leeds.ac.uk> wrote:
>Now then Doug, how's tha doing lad?
ooh not so bad,
>And when do I get to taste any of this stuff anyway (with tea, or not)?
come up and stay in about a month's time - if you're not otherwise
engaged :-)
--
To e-mail me remove .lartsspammers. Homepage http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
KGB
<kq.larts...@kingqueen.org.uk> wrote:
Hi
<SNIP>
>In much the same manner as making cider?
Joking apart, I read somewhere that commercial cider makers routinely
add pork to cider to improve the flavour - seriously.
>
>I'm not up for using finings however, this is strictly vegan beer...
Surely the finings will fall as sediment to the bottom of the keg and
not "pollute" the beer.
In any event, why not just add Irish moss - which is seaweed based and
therefore vegetarian - during the boil. Whilst not a veggie, I always
use Irish moss in my all-grain homebrews and have never had a brew
fail to clear.
Regards
KGB
King Queen
>Surely the finings will fall as sediment to the bottom of the keg and
>not "pollute" the beer.
well, that's true, but I'm being pedantic and still say animal products
were used up in the production :-)
>In any event, why not just add Irish moss - which is seaweed based and
>therefore vegetarian - during the boil. Whilst not a veggie, I always
>use Irish moss in my all-grain homebrews and have never had a brew
>fail to clear.
Something in the Camra book says something about how there are two
different types of finings or something that do different things, irish
moss being a different one from the other.
Hang on I'll try and find it...
normal finings (isinglass, gelatine) with +ve charge and clears the -ve
charged yeast stuff.
"auxilliary finings" like irish moss which are -ve charge and remove the
+ve charged nitrogen and proteins in the beer.
So there you go. God this is a bit anal isn't it! I wonder what type tea
is?
--
To e-mail me remove .lartsspammers. Homepage http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
"Advertising is legalised lieing" H. G. Wells
JS Newby
> On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 10:15:59 -0000, "JS Newby" <sp...@spam.spam.spam>
> wrote:
>
> >Yuk! Doesn't sound a good idea to me as I would have thought it would
affect
> >the flavour adversely (but I admit I haven't tried it myself). You seem
to
> >be doing it just to speed up the clearing so you can drink the beer more
> >quickly. Even if it does clear the beer quickly and doesn't affect the
> >flavour, surely you want to leave the beer to mature for at least a short
> >while before drinking it, as it won't taste as good straight away?
>
> I always leave it at least 6 weeks to mature anyway, perhaps the tea is
> unnecessary.
>
> >Why not
> >make your next batch of beer before you finish the current batch, so you
can
> >afford to wait for it to clear naturally and won't have to resort to such
> >desperate measures? ;-)
>
> We must be telepathic, I've just bought a separate, 20 litre "tester"
> barrel so I can do exactly that.
>
> Tell you what, the beer I've got in the 40 pinter at the moment had the
> tea treatment - I'll make exactly the same in the 20 pinter minus the
> tea and see if it makes any difference :-)
>
rec.crafts.brewing will give you better answers on home brewing questions
than here. Good luck, anyway.
idroberts
pot before adding it to the wort. It had no adverse effect on the beer and
certainly speeded up the process. It's the tannin that does it.
"JS Newby" <sp...@spam.spam.spam> wrote in message
news:10450447...@ernani.logica.co.uk...