Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

has anyone tried making whiskey from fermented tea?
it seems when they make kombucha they start by fermenting sugar and tea before they put all the funky things in it to ruin the fun.

i was thinking about making about 40LTS of black tea adding about 8KGs of sugar and then distilling it once it has finished fermenting.

does anyone have any thoughts or experience with this?

how big is your teapot? :?

well i would use my 50LT mash tun.

the teapot isnt that big

Kombucha spirit. Have heard of it done but not done it myself..would make an interesting drink I reakon.

This is an interesting concept.
I've only made standard kombucha (<1% ABV) with a kombucha scoby to ferment the sugar and tea. I've seen "hard" kombucha around, which I believe they do a 2nd round of fermentation with more sugar and beer/wine yeast.
I imagine the initial kombucha fermentation would make all sorts of acids and esters that might result in some flavourful congeners for your distilled whiskey.

I wonder what gravity a scoby will ferment. I know ginger beer bugs top out at about 5%

I have tried very small batches of various teas and tea like fruit infusions with sugar and EC118 (in 2 litre juice bottles). The idea was to make an alcoholic sparkling tea not to distill it. So same process as making cider.
Maybe I needed lots more tea bags but the end result was very bland. There did not seem to be enough nutrient to sustain the yeast properly either and I had some stalled washes and bacterial infections.
I did not use ordinary black tea though - so that might make a stronger flavour.

Cheers
Carol

I don’t think Tea will give an end product even close to whiskey

I asked SWMBO about this and she said it's all about the forums about low lac stuff but she said don't bother as she won't drink it :laughing-rolling:

So this one is not for me :scared-eek:

Carol wrote:Maybe I needed lots more tea bags but the end result was very bland.

On same line of thought, I think most of the flavour of kombucha comes from fermentation character + anything added post fermentation (fruit etc.). The tea is very much in the background for me.