My Kombuchaventure

At the beginning of March I decided I wanted to try making this thing called Kombucha. It is simply sweet tea that has been fermented with yeast and good bacteria. And it's delicious. It's full of probiotics, a natural detoxifier, good for your joints, and supports immune system health, among other things. I started drinking it for the probiotics because I was experiencing some... mhmm... discomfort. But I love that it's good for my joints and my immune system.

My brother and sister in law have been making their own kombucha for a while now, and they gave some SCOBYs, or mothers, to my sister for Christmas. She then grew quite a few more in the three months that she's had them, so she gave me two. Then she showed me a website that gives step by step instructions on how to make it. It's called Cultures for Health and it tells you practically everything you need to know about making your own kombucha with instructions and a video.

Then I made my first batch following those instructions. I put it and my extra mother in my hall closet. Then I did more research, which turned out to be a bad idea. I ventured out into the wide world of the internet, onto websites and blogs made by people who were far from experts, much of the information said "in my experience," which offered no help to me. I grew increasingly worried that my kombucha would be bad because my sister had put her mothers in the refrigerator. A lot of the websites said they would get moldy, which would obviously make the kombucha unsafe to drink, but after a long conversation with my brother, he explained to me that as long as there was no mold, which probably would have surfaced by the time I got them, and it didn't smell bad, my mothers would be fine. Then he gave me a few pointers to make my kombucha even better.

So I followed his steps and Cultures for Health's guidelines.

The first thing I did to make my second batch to use my second mother was to make the tea. I use anywhere from 2 to 3 cups of FILTERED water. This is important because tap water has chlorine and other stuff in it that can kill your mother (not your real mother, your SCOBY, but it might kill your real mom if she drinks it). And then you'll have a whole different problem. So I boil the water in a clean pot that is completely dry, free from any trace of tap water, (I might be a little paranoid). I let it get to a boil to make sure it's hot, but it doesn't have to boil, it just has to be able to steep your tea.

Then I put 1/3 cup of sugar in a clean, dry mason jar. Next I pour the water in and make sure the sugar is completely dissolved. Adding the sugar is crucial, even if you're trying to cut out sugar or eat less of it or something like that. The mother feeds and grows on the sugar. Without the sugar, your kombucha will not ferment correctly.

First batch, tea steeping

Next I add the tea bags. I use three bags per mason jar. I've done it with black and green tea but you can use oolong too (oolong is already fermented tea so it can make your kombucha taste more vinegary than black or green, according to my bother). Then I let the tea bags sit in the water for ten minutes to steep, and then, after pulling out the bags, I let the sweet tea cool down to room temperature. It can't be too hot or the temperature will kill your SCOBY. But if it's cold it can cause the fermentation process to move slower.

Cultures for Health says the tea should be 68-85 degrees Fahrenheit before adding the mother to the tea. I usually make the tea before dinner and let it cool down over night. It's probably cool enough a couple of hours after I make it but I usually forget about it, so I'll put a coffee filter over it while it cools.

I add the mother to it and the half a cup of starter tea to the sweet tea. The starter tea is simply tea that you save from a previous batch of kombucha, my sister gave me half a cup and some green tea when she gave me my SCOBYs. If you don't have any starter tea, Cultures for Health says that you can use distilled white vinegar instead, and my bother told me you can use apple cider vinegar.

The SCOBY should sink to the bottom
No cover on top, just the filter and ring

Then I grab two coffee filters, unused and clean of course, and put them on top of the jars, you can use a rubber band or a canning ring to secure the filters, this is to keep anything unwanted out of your kombucha. Fruit flies are apparently attracted to it, but it's March now so I haven't experienced this yet. The filter also keeps out dust and other stuff in the air while allowing the kombucha to breath.

It's important to keep your kombucha out of direct sunlight and in a warm, but not hot, place. We don't keep our house particularly warm, so my kombucha ferments rather slowly and grows babies at a slow pace, but more on that in a minute. I now keep mine in a cabinet above our microwave.

However, if you have a sourdough starter, the kombucha needs to ferment at least six feet away from the sourdough or you risk cross contaminating cultures and growing weird stuff in your kombucha.

The kombucha should sit undisturbed for 7 to 30 days. The longer it ferments, the more vinegary the taste. I like my kombucha sweeter, so I let it ferment anywhere from 7 to 10 days. I just take a straw and pull out a sip with my finger on the end, you know the trick. And if I like the taste, I pour 1/2 cup of it into a separate container and put my mother and any babies it grew in it and set it aside. Growing babies is totally normal, and if your mother doesn't grow a baby, then there's a couple things that could be wrong. It's just a thin growth that looks like the beginnings of the mother that sits on the top of the kombucha.

If you like the taste of the kombucha plain, then you don't need to flavor it, but I don't like the way it tastes without a little something in it. I am lucky enough to have a juicer at my disposal, so I buy fresh fruit and juice it myself. If you can't do that, then get organic, pure juice with little to nothing else in it. My favorite flavors are pomegranate lemon and strawberry lemon. I tried pomegranate blueberry once but it wasn't as good as I expected. Ginger is another popular flavor, but I'm not nuts about it.

I always strain my kombucha to get out any yeast floaties that form during fermentation. You can keep them in the 1/2 cup of tea that you saved, but I usually wash them down the drain.

Juicing strawberries

I have no measurements when it comes to flavoring except I only use half a lemon. I juice fruit until it looks like enough and add it to my kombucha, I always start off with a little and add more if I need to because you can always add more, but you can't take any out. I juice pomegranate arils or strawberries and then squeeze a lemon. Because juicing doesn't always keep out all the waste, I strain the juice as I pour it into my kombucha and then strain it a couple more times because I hate floaties in my drink. They are inevitable, however, but you can reduce the amount with straining.

You can also use chopped up fruit instead of juice, but I like the juice better because you get a taste of what it will be like after a couple of days. I feel like using fruit chunks requires a lot of guessing and mystery, and that's not really my thing.

My flavored kombucha for
it's second fermentation

Next I pour the flavored kombucha into an airtight container. Mason jars are not completely airtight, so you won't get the same effect if you use one of those. I use the glass jars with the fancy flip lid. I found them at Target for $6.99. The purpose of the airtight container is to achieve the carbonation of the kombucha. I let mine sit on my counter for 2 or 3 days before drinking.

My airtight container.
There's pulp sitting on the top

But beware, do not shake or swirl the kombucha after a couple days if you have not opened it. I had some pulp from the lemon that sunk to the bottom of the jar in one of my batches, so before testing it after 3 days, I swirled it around to get the bits mixed in, but as soon as I released the pressure holding the lid on, the top shot off and the kombucha fizzed up. It didn't spill or make a mess because it wasn't completely full, but it could have been messy.

Then it was ready to drink!

It's safe to leave in the refrigerator to keep it cold after this. It's better that way.

This second fermentation on the counter is not necessary, especially if you don't like carbonation. But if you use fruit chunks, you need to let it sit for a couple days to infuse the flavors into the tea. Because kombucha is a living food, it can still grow another baby during this time. So don't be surprised if a small, thin glob falls out into your glass when you pour. If you want you can strain the kombucha again before consuming.

Then I start the whole process over again with the 1/2 cup of tea and the mother from the last batch. You can keep the babies to grow into a mother, and, when they get big enough, you can separate them (cruel, I know) and have even more kombucha fermenting at once. The babies just take a little longer to ferment the tea than the mothers until they get big and strong.

I am by far, by no means, an expert on kombucha, but this has been my experience with this delicious, non-alcoholic, fermented beverage.

Stay Classy.