# Spice Dragon Red Chai Wine



## beggarsu (Jun 24, 2014)

Finished _Spice Dragon Red Chai _last week filtered back sweetened and bottled .

Actually changed the name to *Red Dragon Spice Chai* on my labels.



From the tasters it's delicious - the brown sugar pulls it across - also used brown sugar in a 12 liter ginger wine batch - really recommend the use of brown sugar for specialty wine recipes. 


recipe:

It's a specialty tea from "STASH" , it was on for 3 bucks a box so I scooped up some boxes - some for wine some just to drink because it is delicious and I normally drink coffee.

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10390 ml left after racking and filtering - before might have been about 11 litres of liquid to start. , 43 tea bags - threw in some extra herb tea bags of various kinds that I had leftover in the cupboard for years that I thought blended to strengthen the taste but not detract from the Chai ie 4 bags white tea (blueberry and pomegranate), 1 herb back tea for tannin, 1 Acai Berry. I researched on the net that these blend with Chai. 


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SG 1.082 from simple syrup made from dark brown sugar approx .2 KG + ?
Added 1 cup raisins

Standard use of Bentonite, pectic enzyme yeast nutrient etc 
Went bone dry in 5-6 days because simple syrup made it easier to ferment.

Threw up the sweet level (because strong spice taste) to 1 cup sugar per gallon = 649 ml simple syrup. Ratio is .0624768

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Ratio of 3/4 cup sugar to gallon is .0468642 which I am finding is OK for reds and fine wines but too low for summer fruit coolers , Skeeter Pee, rhubarb, pure ginger , etc. Sweet is ok by me and more people like the sweet than don't and they don't like bitter and/or acid taste is not so popular etc from taking getting some reactions to the SP. (most enthusiastic - but a percentage say too bitter and so it would benefit for overall from > 3/4 ratio. 

So the sugar-challenged be darned ( and I know some that gave me reaction that eg the full F-PAcks for Mist Kit Rocking Raspberry was too sweet)- I'm sugaring up the strong tastes especially after I read that Lon for most of his Skeeter Pee loving friends uses 1 to 1.5 cups sugar per gallon for backsweetening and as he noted Kool-Aid uses 2 cups per gallon and this is talking coolers and spicers here.o.
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Total volume =11039 ml bottled 14 bottles + a 500 ml bottle (old beer lock top bottle - yes they can be corked!) 
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Is Success! Is tasty, is ABV final 11.4 percent.

Probably doesn't need much aging except to smooth out the sweetener.
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Though it won't all get drunk that soon as I have about 300 bottles finished wine stored now. Nice to have my own wine menu.


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