I bought a Kombucha starters kit from the Kombucha Shop. I was interesting in trying out kombucha as another type of fermentation. You can customize the kombucha taste and fizziness also trying to lots of different flavorings. You do need some equipment and special bottles with a tight seal and thin neck. Kombucha is really just black/green tea, sugar and a scoby (bacteria). The scoby is a creepy mass of bacteria floating at the top. Making kombucha is fairly easy. The first part is brewing tea long for about 10 minutes, stir in sugar, let cool, then add the scoby. The jar should be covered with a cloth and elastic band allowing air but not exposing. The first ferment lasts about 8-10 days. The scoby should eat the sugar and the color should lighten. After about 7 days you can taste the kombucha each day until is not too sweet and not too vinegary. When ready the scoby is removed along with 1-2 cups of kombucha. Place in a jar with cloth over the top held with an elastic band. I have a ph meter and found the scoby and kombucha has a ph of around 1 and tea has a ph of about 5. Water has a ph of about 7. The kombucha may start at a ph of 4 and when ready usually goes below 3 (2.7 to 3.5). The fun part is picking flavoring for bottling. Fresh fruits pureed or cut into small pieces with sugar works well. Also bottle all natural fruit juice works. I tried lemon cut into small strips, ginger cut into small strips, sugar. Also some tart cherry juice worked well. The kombucha will get fizzy from processing the sugar when under a tight seal.
youtube video kombucha part 1
youtube video kombucha part 2
Ingredients
First ferment
- 12-14g black tea, ceylon and oolong (8g ceylon, 4g oolong)
- 200g sugar (.75 to 1 cup)
- 1-2 cups of previous kombucha with a scoby
Steps
- Boil 4c water
- place loose leaf tea in a satchel
- steep in hot water for 10m
- stir in sugar
- add to 1g jar
- prepare 4c water with ice add to mixture
- add another 2-4c water
- wait until water is 90F
- add scoby with kombucha (1-2c)
- cover with cloth and elastic band
- wait 8-10 days
Second ferment
- for juice: add a few tablespoon of fruit juice with 1t sugar (if need sweetness) in each bottle
- for lemon: slice 1/4 lemon into small pieces, add 2t sugar, add several pieces of thinly sliced ginger
- fill bottles leaving 1-2 inches of room in each bottle
- leave at room temperatures for 2-4 days
- carefully open bottle to check for fizziness
- move to fridge to stop the 2nd ferment
