If you are worried about the bacteria add 1 crushed campden tablet 24 hours before you pitch the yeast. Plus if you are going to sweeten later and plan on using potassium sorbate you also need campden at that point. Won't carbonate in the bottle. You would have to carbonate with CO2.

curlyfat wrote:I added a bunch of green tea to a pale-ale recipe once. I ended up with green ale. No tea taste at all. It just didn't come through. I think you'd need just a really strong tea with some fermentable added to come out any good at all.

Hey Curlyfat,

Did you add the tea before the boil, or after? I believe someone mentioned that boiling the tea might lessen the flavor? Also, was the pale ale recipe dry hopped at all? That might mask the more subtle tea flavor.

No dry hopping. I actually steeped a bunch of tea bags separately and added the super strong tea to the fermenter with the wort. If I were to do it again, i'd throw the tea bags into the fermenter, or into the wort at flame-out.