I had Kombucha once or twice at Whole Foods, and I have to say, I was not very impressed at all. The only way I could describe the taste was "weird".
After talking with our friend Katie, I decided to give it another go. I am glad I did! I find that brewing your own Kombucha yields a much tastier elixir than the commercially made variety. I am not sure why, but I think commercially made Kombucha adds more sugar to their mix to allow the SCOBY to grow quicker and ferment faster, in order to produce more Kombucha quicker. Another reason could be the type of tea they use.
Anyways, I have made 3 batches of Kombucha so far. Two turned out very good, and one went horribly wrong.
Let me share with you what I have learned about brewing Kombucha.
First, it is really best to make this stuff in large batches. It takes a while for it to ferment, and you have to reserve some of your batch as a starter for the next batch. So it is best to make a lot of it. In the picture above, the glass was so small, I really finished it off in just a day or two...
This leads to my second suggestion: It really helps to have the right sized containers to brew and then store your Kombucha.
My first batch turned out good. The only problem was that I was using a small flower sized jar, so there wasn't a lot of it. The SCOBY started floating to the top, which made it difficult to pour out the Kombucha to drink it.
I then purchased 2 large glass jars (1 gallon capacity each) with spigots. These turned out much better as they could hold a larger volume. Also the circumference of the top was much wider, so the SCOBY could really spread out and grow.
Third, the SCOBY needs four things to grow and spit out low doses of alcohol: 1) a clean sterile environment 2) a dark place 3) oxygen and 4) pure white sugar (don't use brown sugar or any other type).
For the first requirement, make sure that the glass jar is clean-wash it out with hot water and soap, or put it through the dishwashing machine. (Note, some glass jars, like the one I got, cannot go through the dishwasher, so you have to wash them by hand. Use a clean sponge and hot water).
SCOBYs hate sunlight, so be sure to cover the jar with a cloth towel to prevent sunlight coming in. I tuck mine into a corner on my kitchen counter, so it is away from everything else and far from sunlight.
Make sure that wherever you decide to store your kombucha container for the fermentation process is clean and relatively free of dust. I will give the whole area a good cleaning the day before, just to make sure everything is clean. You want to make sure the area is relatively free of dust, cover the top of your glass jar with a clean cloth kitchen towel. Secure it with a strong rubber band around the lip of the jar. This will give the SCOBY enough oxygen. I made the mistake of covering my jar with the glass cover that was provided with the jars, and my SCOBY died from suffocation (see my tips below).
SCOBYs need lots of food to grow and brew Kombucha. Their food is pure white refined sugar. Don't try to use brown sugar or other types, it just won't work out. Also, be very exact with the amount of sugar you use--too little will starve your SCOBY and too much will kill it.
The best place to get a SCOBY is from someone who brews Kombucha regularly. Basically, for each batch of Kombucha you brew, you will grow a new SCOBY. There is only so much Kombucha that any one person can brew, so there is bound to be extra SCOBYs hanging around. Ask around with friends, family and co-workers to see if they brew, and reserve one of their SCOBYs.
Ingredients
2-3 quarts of water (1 quart is 4 cups)
1 cup of white refined sugar
4 teabags (or 4 spoonfuls of loose tea)
1 glass jar, 1 gallon capacity
Kombucha starter (1 bottle of Kombucha, either commercially bought or your own from a previous batch)
1 SCOBY
Ginger, berries or other flavoring agents (optional)
The key to Kombucha is the proper ratio of tea to sugar, and a good healthy SCOBY. The ratio above works fairly well (8 cups of water to 1 cup sugar). Depending on the size of your container, you can adjust that ratio up or down.
The container I use is 17 cups. I usually like to have some space at the top of my jar, so I use 16 cups of water (4 quarts), 2 cups of sugar. I included some other basic ratios you can use depending on the size of your container:
1 cup water=1/8 cup sugar
2 cups water=.25 cups sugar
3 cups water=.25 cups sugar
4 cups water=.5 cups sugar
6 cups water=.5 cups sugar2 quarts (8 cups) water =1 cup sugar
3 quarts (12 cups) water =1.5 cups sugar
4 quarts (16 cups) water=2 cups sugar
4.25 (17 cups) quarts water =2 1/8 cups sugar
Procedure
Bring the water to a boil and brew your tea. I have those glass ice tea dispensers which hold 1 gallon (4.8 quarts or 19 cups) of water. So I usually will put 3 quarts (12 cups) of water to boil. This way, even after evaporation while boiling, there will still be plenty of room for my SCOBY and the 1 bottle of Kombucha starter. You can use any type of tea you want to. I have been using a mango tropical tea I found in Chinatown in San Francisco, and it has been wonderful. Katie, who is my Kombucha Doctor, uses Trader Joe's Pomegranate White Tea. Basically the type of tea you use will determine your flavor profile for the Kombucha. It is much easier to use tea that is in tea bags, but if you have a small hand strainer, loose tea works equally as well.
Once your tea is brewed, remove the tea bags or loose tea leaves and add the sugar. Stir it for a few seconds to dissolve the sugar.
At this point, let the tea cool to room temperature. This is a very important step because hot or even warm water will kill your SCOBY! I usually brew my tea on a Friday night, and let it sit out overnight with the lid on. By Saturday morning it is completely cooled.
Remove the tea bags or strain out the loose tea leaves. The tea will be super sweet at this point!
Add one bottle of Kombucha as a starter to your brewing container. Transfer the tea to your brewing container. I use glass jars with 1 gallon capacity.
Take your SCOBY and run it under cold water to clean it off. Emphasis on cold water, as hot or warm water will kill the SCOBY. Sometimes you will get some dark spots on the SCOBY so it is best to gently pick those off.
Place your SCOBY in the jar with the newly brewed tea. Cover with a clean cloth towel and secure it with a rubber band.
Store the container on a countertop away from food and sunlight. Let it sit for 3 or 4 weeks. As summer approaches it will get hotter and this will speed up the fermentation process, so it might only take 2 weeks.
After about 2 weeks, taste the Kombucha. If you have a spigot on your jar, this is easy to do. If not, extract some with a straw. The longer you leave it, the less sweet it will get and the more sour it will become (it will eat up all the sugar).
You can also smell the Kombucha through the cloth towel on the top of the jar. It should smell fragrant. If it smells rotten or foul, something has gone awry!
.JPG)
Additionally, during this time a new SCOBY should be growing in your jar. Sometimes it will grow directly on top of your existing SCOBY, sometimes it will grown underneath your existing SCOBY.
In the picture on the right, you can see the newer smaller SCOBY on the left, next to the older SCOBY on the right.
.JPG)
This is a another shot of it. As you can see, the newer, smaller SCOBY has formed on the left, next to the older, larger SCOBY on the right.
When it gets the way you want it, your are ready for bottling!
The SCOBY still needs food, and if things went well you should have 2 SCOBYs. At this point you have 2 options:
1) Continue the brewing cycle by brewing another batch of tea and start the process over, using the new SCOBY with this new batch of tea
Or
2) Give one of your SCOBYs away to a friend. If you give it away, I think it would be best to place it into a ziplock bag and give it to them straight away. You don't want the SCOBY out of solution for very long.
If you choose to continue the brewing cycle, take one of the original Kombucha bottles you purchased from the store for the Kombucha starter and fill it with your newly brewed Kombucha. This will serve as your starter for the next batch. Start brewing more tea and start the process over again.
Then, take the remainder of the Kombucha and pour it into a large glass bottle (I use a glass bottle that had apple juice in it originally). Cap it off. At this point, you can refrigerate the Kombucha. However, if you want it even more bubbly, you can take the large glass bottle and leave it out to sit at room temperature for a least a week before refrigeration.
I recently purchased some SLOM glass bottles at Ikea with a plastic stopper on them. These are really good because they really lock in the air. It made for a very bubbly kombucha. Be warned though--they bottle really explodes when you release the cap! I had filled these bottles to the top and then left them for a week. When I took the cap off, this is what happened:
.JPG)
For additional flavor, I will usually peel and slice ginger and add that to the bottle. This gives it a really good flavor and tastes something like ginger ale.
When things go wrong and other tips
You are dealing with yeasts, bacteria and other live cultures. Sometimes things go wrong. When you are brewing your Kombucha and something looks "weird", trust your instincts and throw the SCOBY and the Kombucha away and start again. You don't want to risk getting sick.
.JPG)
One batch I was making went horribly wrong. Instead of putting a cloth towel over the top, I decided to put the glass top that came with the dispenser. My SCOBY started suffocating from the lack of oxygen and started to turn black, with lots of dark strands. It smelled funky, not the fragrant the way the Kombucha is supposed to taste. The SCOBY had lots of black spots on it as well.
I threw both the Kombucha and the SCOBY out and started again.
.JPG)
.JPG)
Sometimes the new SCOBY will attach itself to the existing SCOBY, making it difficult to separate them for a new batch. Try running them under cold water and gently separating them. If that doesn't work. simply cut the SCOBY in half and place half in each jar. The SCOBY is strong and will start to grow again. As you can see in the two pictures on the right, the newer, smaller SCOBY is growing directly on top of the older, larger SCOBY. I had to just cut the whole thing in half, but it still worked fine!
.JPG)
3 quarts (12 cups) water =1.5 cups sugar
4 quarts (16 cups) water=2 cups sugar
4.25 (17 cups) quarts water =2 1/8 cups sugar
Procedure
Bring the water to a boil and brew your tea. I have those glass ice tea dispensers which hold 1 gallon (4.8 quarts or 19 cups) of water. So I usually will put 3 quarts (12 cups) of water to boil. This way, even after evaporation while boiling, there will still be plenty of room for my SCOBY and the 1 bottle of Kombucha starter. You can use any type of tea you want to. I have been using a mango tropical tea I found in Chinatown in San Francisco, and it has been wonderful. Katie, who is my Kombucha Doctor, uses Trader Joe's Pomegranate White Tea. Basically the type of tea you use will determine your flavor profile for the Kombucha. It is much easier to use tea that is in tea bags, but if you have a small hand strainer, loose tea works equally as well.
Once your tea is brewed, remove the tea bags or loose tea leaves and add the sugar. Stir it for a few seconds to dissolve the sugar.
At this point, let the tea cool to room temperature. This is a very important step because hot or even warm water will kill your SCOBY! I usually brew my tea on a Friday night, and let it sit out overnight with the lid on. By Saturday morning it is completely cooled.
Remove the tea bags or strain out the loose tea leaves. The tea will be super sweet at this point!
Add one bottle of Kombucha as a starter to your brewing container. Transfer the tea to your brewing container. I use glass jars with 1 gallon capacity.
Take your SCOBY and run it under cold water to clean it off. Emphasis on cold water, as hot or warm water will kill the SCOBY. Sometimes you will get some dark spots on the SCOBY so it is best to gently pick those off.
Place your SCOBY in the jar with the newly brewed tea. Cover with a clean cloth towel and secure it with a rubber band.
Store the container on a countertop away from food and sunlight. Let it sit for 3 or 4 weeks. As summer approaches it will get hotter and this will speed up the fermentation process, so it might only take 2 weeks.
After about 2 weeks, taste the Kombucha. If you have a spigot on your jar, this is easy to do. If not, extract some with a straw. The longer you leave it, the less sweet it will get and the more sour it will become (it will eat up all the sugar).
You can also smell the Kombucha through the cloth towel on the top of the jar. It should smell fragrant. If it smells rotten or foul, something has gone awry!
.JPG)
Additionally, during this time a new SCOBY should be growing in your jar. Sometimes it will grow directly on top of your existing SCOBY, sometimes it will grown underneath your existing SCOBY.In the picture on the right, you can see the newer smaller SCOBY on the left, next to the older SCOBY on the right.
.JPG)
This is a another shot of it. As you can see, the newer, smaller SCOBY has formed on the left, next to the older, larger SCOBY on the right.When it gets the way you want it, your are ready for bottling!
The SCOBY still needs food, and if things went well you should have 2 SCOBYs. At this point you have 2 options:
1) Continue the brewing cycle by brewing another batch of tea and start the process over, using the new SCOBY with this new batch of tea
Or
2) Give one of your SCOBYs away to a friend. If you give it away, I think it would be best to place it into a ziplock bag and give it to them straight away. You don't want the SCOBY out of solution for very long.
If you choose to continue the brewing cycle, take one of the original Kombucha bottles you purchased from the store for the Kombucha starter and fill it with your newly brewed Kombucha. This will serve as your starter for the next batch. Start brewing more tea and start the process over again.
Then, take the remainder of the Kombucha and pour it into a large glass bottle (I use a glass bottle that had apple juice in it originally). Cap it off. At this point, you can refrigerate the Kombucha. However, if you want it even more bubbly, you can take the large glass bottle and leave it out to sit at room temperature for a least a week before refrigeration.
I recently purchased some SLOM glass bottles at Ikea with a plastic stopper on them. These are really good because they really lock in the air. It made for a very bubbly kombucha. Be warned though--they bottle really explodes when you release the cap! I had filled these bottles to the top and then left them for a week. When I took the cap off, this is what happened:.JPG)
For additional flavor, I will usually peel and slice ginger and add that to the bottle. This gives it a really good flavor and tastes something like ginger ale.
When things go wrong and other tips
You are dealing with yeasts, bacteria and other live cultures. Sometimes things go wrong. When you are brewing your Kombucha and something looks "weird", trust your instincts and throw the SCOBY and the Kombucha away and start again. You don't want to risk getting sick.
.JPG)
One batch I was making went horribly wrong. Instead of putting a cloth towel over the top, I decided to put the glass top that came with the dispenser. My SCOBY started suffocating from the lack of oxygen and started to turn black, with lots of dark strands. It smelled funky, not the fragrant the way the Kombucha is supposed to taste. The SCOBY had lots of black spots on it as well.I threw both the Kombucha and the SCOBY out and started again.
.JPG)
.JPG)
Sometimes the new SCOBY will attach itself to the existing SCOBY, making it difficult to separate them for a new batch. Try running them under cold water and gently separating them. If that doesn't work. simply cut the SCOBY in half and place half in each jar. The SCOBY is strong and will start to grow again. As you can see in the two pictures on the right, the newer, smaller SCOBY is growing directly on top of the older, larger SCOBY. I had to just cut the whole thing in half, but it still worked fine!.JPG)
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