If any natural yeast survives the bottling process it will ferment
inside the bottles, with the sugar, producing carbon dioxide. The tea
will become "carbonated" and may have a very different flavor than expected.

Mike Flaminio wrote:
I'm looking for some information on how to bottle my own iced tea.
Specifically sweet tea. Yeah, it takes like 5 minutes to make, but I'd
like something portable and quick. Maybe more, just something to try.

Made a test batch up today. I brewed my tea as normal.
Used beer bottles with regular caps and capper.
Cleaned out the bottles with a brush with bleach water.
Let the bottles soak + caps + funnel in the bleach water for 10
minutes. Rinsed well with fresh water
Boiled 12 qts of water, and put bottles in the water with funnel.
Brought the tea to a medium simmer in a second pan
Transfer tea to bottles, then cap.

The tea had extra lemon in it in hopes of a natural buffer against any
contamination that might have got in.

My plan is let the bottles sit a week or so and see what happens. If
there was contamination, I suspect it'd show in a couple days. If not,
I'd expect to keep for a while.

Any idea how long this should keep, provided no contamination?
Are there any stabilizers or buffers I could use to help preserve the
tea?
Any other suggestions?