Kombucha Instructions
*for 1 gallon of tea
- Clean everything well
and use white vinegar to rinse jars out if you have any contamination risk.
Swing-top bottles seal well but are hard to clean. Soak them and use white
vinegar to clean them.
- 1 gallon or 2 gallon wide
mouth jars, the less neck the better. I used to recommend the 2 gallon jars
with taps on them but they became clogged and worthless after a couple of
months. It’s been fine to use a Pyrex glass to scoop out the kombucha and the
jars without taps are half the price.
- SCOBYs can be purchased
online or grown with a kit (Cultures for Health makes one and Kombucha Brooklyn
sells starter kits and SCOBY) or you can get one from a friend. The size of the
SCOBY doesn’t matter. A new one will grow to fit the size of the jar you put it
in. Beware using too large of a jar for a little SCOBY. A half-pint SCOBY may not be strong enough for a 2 gal. jar without a good 12 oz. of starter, or you could use a 1/2 gal. jar to begin brewing and upscale from there.
Equipment/Ingredients
1
gallon glass jar
8
qt. stainless steel pot with lid
Additional
pot/container to pour into while straining tea (restaurant grade food storage
bins are great)
8-10
swing-top bottles or other glass container with a screw-on cap. (Mason jars
leak CO2 and cork-style blow off from pressure).
Measuring
cups
Timer
1
Thermometer
2
clean cotton cloth/old, clean t-shirt cut to fit across the top of each jar
2
Rubber bands (to secure cloth to jar)
1
gallon purified water
Tea (it
depends on what kind of tea you use, around 16-18 grams)
1
cup evaporated cane sugar (Woodstock Organic Pure Cane Sugar or Kirkland, via Costco)
1
SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria & Yeast)
Directions
First Fermentation
1)
Heat 1 gallon
of water in stainless steel pot to:
- 212°F black
tea
- 185°F oolong
tea
- 170°F green
tea
2)
Remove water
from heat and add tea. Stir well and cover with lid which helps keep
temperature
consistent
and ensures full flavor extraction. Steep tea for:
-
4 min. black & green tea
-
5 min. for oolong tea
3)
Pour tea
through mesh strainer into the second pot/container to strain out loose tea.
With larger pots you may need a second person to help. (I put a pitcher in the
sink with the mesh strainer over it and the handle resting on the counter so I
can use both hands to pour). You may lose some water to evaporation/tea leaves.
**You can also invest in a brewers bag to steep the tea in and skip this whole
process.
4)
Add 1 c.
sugar to jar and stir until dissolved.
5)
Allow tea to
cool to room temperature (I leave mine over night but be sure to cover it with
a cloth so dust doesn’t get in)
6)
Add SCOBY to tea
7)
Place
cloth/shirt over the top and secure with a rubber band. Too much airflow will
inhibit the growth of the SCOBY, not enough and the SCOBY will grow
8)
Allow to
ferment 7-21 days to your taste preference
9)
Using a
funnel or the tap, drain the kombucha into bottles. You can take the SCOBY out
and rinse it to remove any yeast strands.
*Keep
SCOBY out of direct sunlight and in temperatures between 77°F-85°F. Cooler
temperatures will cause slower fermentation and will likely affect
effervescence. Too hot will cook the little buggers.
*Tip:
Put the sugar in the container you’re pouring the hot tea in before the tea. It dissolves the sugar
quickly.
Second Fermentation
1)
Add grated
fresh fruit or juice (whatever you like) and allow to sit on the counter for 3-
7 days or until flavors are as you like and it’s effervescent. Measurements for
fruit are according to preference. Some say a 1:10 fruit to tea ratio but it
really depends on the sugar. High- sugar fruits like ripe mango and pineapple
have a lot of sugar and may explode.
OR
Add
fruit/juice and 1 tsp. sugar per quart of kombucha and allow to ferment 3+
days. This helps it become more effervescent. It requires some experimentation.
Whenever
you like the flavor at any point in the process, bottle it and put it in the
refrigerator to enjoy.
***Be
sure to crack open and off-gas the bottles after 2-3 days so they don’t explode
and keep an eye on them. I’ve had bottles be fine for the first three days and
by day four explode.
Notes & Tips
-
Grow more SCOBYs by bottling a batch and allowing it to sit out instead of
refrigerate. Cover with a cloth and keep in similar conditions to the other
batch. Once a SCOBY forms you will want to make it a fresh batch of tea.
Bacteria grows and feeds on sugar so the longer a batch goes, the more tart it
will become.
-
Once your SCOBY gets thicker, you can start to divide it and share with friends
or make more batches yourself. If you drink a lot of kombucha or always like to
have a batch going, start a second one a week after the first so they can be
bottled at different times.
- Be
sure to save a some kombucha for your SCOBY to “rest” in. This keeps the SCOBY
from drying out and the extra tea will help jump-start your next batch. It’s
commonly called “starter tea”.
- Watch out for mold. A growing SCOBY can look
like mold growth, but if there are white, hairy spots keep an eye on them. If
your SCOBY does have mold, you must throw everything out and start over due to
the contamination. See the Brooklyn Kombucha link below for examples of mold
growth.
- Do not use honey or beet sugars. Evaporated cane sugar is your best option. Honey kombucha is different and is called jun.
-
Take notes for every batch and be sure to date your batches for first and
second fermentation dates! The better you are about note-taking the more
success you will have (especially if you make a batch you love and want to
replicate it).
*A note on Jun: It's delicious. Jun SCOBY can be bought online through Kombucha Brooklyn. Or you can be a rogue in the kombucha community and convert a regular SCOBY to a jun one by using a sugar SCOBY but all the subsequent batches using honey instead of sugar. Beware it takes a lot more honey, which is expensive, than sugar to make a batch sweet enough. Do NOT use pasteurized honey or anything but a local, raw honey. There's very little regulation in the world of honey labeling and bees are dying of a myriad of issues due to humans. Please do what you can to mitigate your impact.
Places to Buy Equipment (in Rochester)
Swing-top bottles/half
gallon jugs: Sunset Hydroponics & Home Brewing, Wegmans, Target, &
Amazon ($2.99-$12+)
2 gallon glass jar:
Target or Walmart ($28) *the 2 gallon jars without taps are around $12. The tap
is not worth it as it becomes clogged over time.
Fine mesh strainer:
Innovative Supply ($5)
Measuring cups: Anywhere
Thermometer: Target ($10)
Funnel: Innovative Supply
($2)
Bulk tea: Lori’s Natural
Foods ($/lb. depending on tea)
Resources/Ideas
(Book) Kombucha
Revolution, by Steven Lee & Ken Koopman
(Book) Delicious
Probiotic Drinks, by Julia Mueller
*feel free to e-mail
Jesse at jessekhorning@gmail.com or boochababes@gmail.com with further questions or any news about
successful brews! J
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