Kombucha Basics

This is my basic guide to brewing Kombucha. It is somewhere between a batch and continuous method, uses metric units and yields about 2l every 2 weeks depending on the temperature. It also assumes you have a healthy scoby with some kombucha already.

1. Brew some tea in an empty vessel. The absolute amount isn't important, but the ratio should be close to the following: 2l water, 6 tea bags (English breakfast), 200g sugar. Leave the bags in for 10min and ensure all the sugar is dissolved.
2. Leave it to cool- room temperature. Very important- hot tea will kill the scoby.
3. Once cool, add it to you scoby and left over Kombucha from your last brew.
4. Wait... Generally I don't bother tasting it till I see some bubbles, but you do you. This should take about 7 days. Keep it out of direct son, unsealed (cloth over the lid) and warmish 10-20 degC.
5. You're waiting for the right time to bottle for the second fermentation. My general rule of thumb is to wait till it doesn't have a sweet taste anymore. It should also be a bit fizzy. If you let it go too far it will be sour- eventually a bit like vinegar.
6. Now bottle 2l of it- I like to you two 1l bottles. You should be left with your scoby and some kombucha in the brewing vessel to which you'll add your tea again.
7. In the bottles you're going to do the 2nd fermentation. This isn't strictly speaking necessary, but it adds a lot of fizz and you can infuse some great flavor. Here are some ideas of things to add (For a 1l bottle):
   1. Teaspoon of vanilla essence, tablespoon maple syrup
   2. Juice of 1 lemon, 1Tbsp honey, 1Tbsp Grated ginger
   3. Smashed fruit, e.g. 5 smashed strawberries, cherries, blueberries etc
8. Now seal your bottles and leave them for about a week. I like to use old plastic drinks bottles that way I can feel when they're nice and hard due to the pressure build up. Avoid glass as you'll always be worried that they'll pop from the pressure.
9. Start at 1 again and brew some tea to go back in the empty vessel.

Some maintenance required:

• If the scoby gets more than 3cm thick it's time to halve it- so just pull a couple of the bottom layers off and give them to a friend, or blend them in a smoothie.
• The yeast will leave brown bits of slime- when trimming your scoby you can clean the vessel and get rid of some of this. Remember to keep some of the kombucha though to kick start the brew again.

Be Brewing

rexfuzzle.com