Random experiment

Last night I decided to mess around with some left over ingredients I had.  With a bunch of lime juice left over from the Limecello, some yeast I needed to use up, and whatever else I could find I whipped up this odd brew.

8 cups of hot water, chocolate mint leaves, lime juice (20 limes), 4 cups sugar, 1/4 tsp yeast.
Basically I made a big batch of mint tea, added a crap load of sugar, and pitched some yeast in it. 
It has a high SG with a capability of producing 18% ABV.  The yeast I used won't go that high, and it is a type of champagne yeast, so it should be bubbly but not too alcoholic.  I needed to use the yeast up.  I had been using it for homemade root beer and ginger ale.

Here is an awesome way to make homemade tea bags 

This should work for most kinds of herb.. and other materials..

 Here are some raw chocolate Mint leaves that I have dried.  I usually add them to tea for a bit of extra flavor.

You can't easily open up a tea bag and add your own stuff without it leaking out into you water.  There are metal and plastic capsules you can buy that act as reusable tea bags, but I don't have a lot of cash and I don't know where to buy one in stores. 



So all you need is a coffee filter and a rubber band.

First, strip the leaves off of the stems.  I did this over top of a paper towel so it is easier to transfer any little pieces.

Then pick out any stems that broke off with the leaves.  You can leave them in, but some stems don't add flavors you are looking for.

Next, grab these pieces, or just pour them with the paper towel, and put them into a coffee filter.  Now just crush the leaves up with your fingers.  If your herb is dry this will be very easy.

Then you want to start bunching up the coffee filter by gathering up the top of the filter slowly.

See how the sides of the filter are like an accordion?  Bring the sides together like how an accordion closes. 

Then give it a little twist and secure it with a rubber band.  This is what it will look like, a little bag but not so tight that the herbs can move around inside a bit. 

Just drop this in your cup/teapot/pot or whatever and steep it like a normal tea bag.


It is not hard to do and it is cheap and disposable