Kombucha! Growing your own scoby

May. 28th, 2008 at 3:39 PM

We started making kombucha a few months ago. It's a fermented sweet tea beverage - you take sweet tea & add a culture called a scoby (or kombucha "mushroom"). After two weeks, the scoby has turned all the sugar into beneficial nutrients & added beneficial bacteria & yeasts (not the bad ones that take over your body & cause health problems), leaving you with a bubbly, tangy drink. Normally you get a scoby from a friend, but I didn't have one, so I grew my own from a bottle of storebought kombucha (at $3.99/bottle, it was easy to decide to make my own, esp. considering it's no-brainer easy!). Now I have kombucha in my home and should never run out or have to buy it again!

So here's what I did, for anyone who wants to try it:

Bought a bottle of GT's kombucha. Drank half. Put the rest in a glass on the counter.

Let it sit 3 weeks. Covered with a towel (that doesn't touch the liquid). Room temp. I understand many people get a scoby w/i a week doing this. I think I had one after a week, but it was so thin and translucent I didn't see it. At 3 weeks, it was good and sturdy and thick. It looks like a thin, slimy pancake. I found it needs to be dark, so I keep a towel over the whole jar.

Made sweet tea (I used Nourishing Traditions' recipe: 3 quarts water, 4 bags organic tea, 1 cup organic sugar (Florida Crystals)). Let it cool in a gallon glass jar. (must be black or green tea; no herbals)

Gently added the scoby & 1/2C of the kombucha I started with.

Let it sit 3 weeks. Dark place. I think people brew their Kombucha Tea 7-30 days. At 68 degrees, I found that it took 3 full weeks to quit tasting like sweet tea & get to the wonderful flavor of the storebought drink. At 78 degrees, it's taking more like 2 weeks.

Bottle and refrigerate - drink up! I use old juice jars (glass! kombucha's acidity should not be in a metal or plastic container). Some people reuse beer bottles w/ lids from a brewing store.

Optional - Add diced ginger. Put lid on and leave in the same brewing place for 2-3 more days. This secondary fermentation will intensify the flavor & natural carbonation, while infusing it with a perfectly complementary ginger flavor. I've tried ginger w/ orange peel & ginger-blueberry, too, but I like plain ginger the best.

W/ a little kombucha each day, my desire for bubbly, thirst-quenching drinks is totally satiated. Yum! Naturally probiotic drinks, including lacto-fermented ones like ginger beer, are what our taste buds are calling for when they want sharp/sweet & fizzy. It's what our ancestors all over the world drank for millennia!

Every time you make kombucha you get a new ("baby") scoby. I have lots of babies if anyone nearby needs one!

Information on the nutritional & probiotic content: http://www.happyherbalist.com/analysis_of_kombucha.htm
Articles about the history and health benefits of kombucha: http://www.kombu.de/english.htm
Excerpts from scientific analyses of kombucha: http://www.kombucha-america.com/page4.shtml

If you've never had it, start w/ a 1/4 cup or so, and drink a little more each day. It's not a guzzling drink, more like a sipping one. I drink about a cup a day. If you're pregnant & are not already drinking it, don't start just yet. :)

mood: happy

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AMDG

Comments

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(Anonymous)

May. 28th, 2008 10:18 pm (UTC)

Kowabunga - Kombucha!

Yay! Thanks for posting this. I still haven't ordered the book b/c I haven't finished totally cleaning off the Kombucha Kounter. This provides more incentive.

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