Jasmine Cider

[Alex.Tas]

I've been brewing cider the easy way - Oz tops. While certainly not the most traditional method of brewing or the best, it works for me and is very easy.
I've read that some people use tea in their 20L batches to add some tannin and therefore body into their cider.

To adapt for Oztops, i was thinking something along the lines of:

About 2L of Berri apple juice.
250ml of green and jasmine tea steeped for 5 minutes.
Bit of lactose perhaps 5tbs.
Split into two 1.25L soft drink bottles.

Anyone have any advice on something like this?
Anyone know places to look for jasmine flowers (like how they come in the tea bags)? Would asian grocers have them? I want to amp up the jasmine flavour as i think it adds a nice smoothness to the tea. Dunno how it will go once its carbonated.

Cheers,

 

[Airgead]

Never tried anything like that. My ciders are pretty much straight up juice. All I can say is give it a go and see how it comes out. At worst you lose a few litres of juice and some tea.

My best guess for the jasmine flowers would be a chinese grocer or herb place. Maybe a chinese herbal medicine seller? or one of those high end tea shops?

Cheers
Dave

 

[Not For Horses]

Sounds interesting.
Dragon Ball Tea Flowers could be a goer.
They mostly come in Hyacinth but you can get Jasmine. Fairly certain that T2 have them.

Also, have you used Lactose before? I've tried it a few times and it seems to make ferk all difference to sweetness.

 

[Alex.Tas]

Thanks for the input you two. I'll have a go at the above mentioned recipe and see how that goes. May not need any more jasmine...
Yeah i've used some lactose, and you are right it doesn;t make a huge difference. you really need to use a lot to make a noticeable gain. I've been trialing a few with 1tbs/L, 2tbs/L last year and there was very little that separates them. I had a tough time getting it to dissolve in the bottle to be honest. I'm gonna take a little juice and boil the lactose in it i reckon, then make the tea with that.

Edit: I've forgottern which yeast works better with the oz tops at temps around 18 degrees (my only constantly warm spot in the house) was it yeast 1 or 2?

 

[Deep End]

I've got a filthy great Jasmine bush in my backyard.....full of flowers...dunno if that helps. I'm just down the road from you.

 

[Alex.Tas]

Thanks Deep end, i might just take you up on that next time round. Is the the true jasmine, or the star jasmine?

I boiled up 1L last night of juicy isle apple juice, dissolved 6 tbs of lactose, then took it off the heat. Then i steeped two teabags of lipton jasmine and green tea for three minutes.
I poured the mixture back into the large 2.5L bottle and gave it a shake to mix it all in. I then decanted the mixture into two 1.25 L bottles (1L into each).
Added half a cap of the orange tube yeast. I forget which is which now...

So i was left with roughly 500ml of jasmine/green tea infused juice that had been sweetened.

The hydrometer sample gave a reading of 1050. Last night when i made it, i tasted the hydrometer sample. Tasted great. silky smooth thanks to the jasmine. I still had roughly 400ml of the juice/tea mixture... This morning i had another taste, and it tasted quite difference. the jasmine flavor is really pronounced and there is definitely more 'body' in the liquid. I reckon it will continue to develop as time goes by, perhaps become slightly bitter thanks to the green tea. Maybe should have only steeped for two minutes.
Time will tell.

 

[Airgead]

Any reason you boiled the juice? Most ciders aren't made with any heat at all. You end up with a cooked apple flavour rather than the crisp, fresh apple.

Bottled juice is generally flash pasturised and stabilised for shelf life so you shouldn't need to worry about any bugs in it.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Greg.L]

I am pretty sure real jasmine is a bit poisonous, not the drop-dead poisonous but the pain in the gut type. You shouldn't add it to cider. Jasmine tea is a different thing.

 

[Airgead]

I think Jasmine tea does use jasmine flowers but a very specific cultivar. Might want to be careful picking any old jasmine flower.





Jasmine tea[SIZE=small][[/SIZE]edit source]




Green tea with jasmine flowers


Jasmine tea is consumed in China, where it is called jasmine-flower tea (茉莉花茶; pinyin: mò lì huā chá). Jasminum sambac flowers are also used to make jasmine tea, which often has a base of green tea or white tea, but sometimes an Oolong base is used. Flowers and tea are "mated"[clarification needed] in machines that control temperature and humidity. It takes four hours or so for the tea to absorb the fragrance and flavour of the jasmine blossoms, and for the highest grades, this process may be repeated as many as seven times. It must be refired to prevent spoilage. The spent flowers may or may not be removed from the final product, as the flowers are completely dry and contain no aroma. Giant fans are used to blow away and remove the petals from the denser tea leaves.
In Okinawa, Japan, jasmine tea is known as sanpin cha (さんぴん茶)

 

[Alex.Tas]

G'day Dave

I needed boiling liquid to steep the tea, so i boiled the juice so as not to water it down at all with water. Also i find it hard to get the lactose to dissolve otherwise.

Thanks for the info on the poison too Greg.

 

[Airgead]

You could cold steep the tea. Treat it like a dry hop in beer. Let the flavour extract for a few days or weeks at a lower temp. Might work (I know sweet FA about tea).

Or you could make up a small volume of very string tea and add that to avoid watering down the brew too much.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Alex.Tas]

Yeah i could do... Personally i don't like to steep my tea (especially green tea) for too long, as it becomes bitter pretty quickly. If i had the patience i could do some tests with how long to cold steep my tea for. Perhaps one day I will, but i reckon I'll see how the current batch goes first. I didn't boil the juice for long, so i doubt it will have changed the flavor profile too much by a relatively short trip up to 100 deg C.

 

[Airgead]

According to the missus (who does know about tea), jasmine goes bitter when its steeped too hot. Apparently it benefits from a longer, cooler steeping. 80c for 6 minutes is the sweet spot apparently.

 

[Alex.Tas]

Tasted a hydro sample last night. Tasted great! Dunno if i've reached FG yet though. it was 1014, so i doubt it. Not too sure what the tea and lactose added to the gravity because i didn't check the gravity of the juice before adding the lactose or tea. Either way it should be around 4.5% ABV now as it was 1050 after the jasmine and lactose addition.
Maybe it hasn't finished fermenting, because i find my ciders typically end up really dry. Or maybe the jasmine/green tea and lactose helped to fill the hole left by the fermentation process.

I recommend this recipe to anyone who likes cider. There is practically no tea taste whatsoever and the jasmine is only just noticeable.

 

[of mice and gods]

As has already been mentioned, be very careful about using fresh 'Jasmine' unless you can identify the plant genus and species.

Jasmine tea is made out of Jasminum sambac, but I would also advise further research and caution. I'm not sure of any specific toxic properties of this plant.

The common Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) that a lot of people grow is pretty poisonous and I would highly advise against ingesting it, I would extend this to all other plants in the family 'Apocynaceae'.

Be safe.
Al