Kombucha is an ancient fermented tea drink with active probiotic cultures. The bacteria that grows atop the fermenting liquid is referred to as a SCoBY, or a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. This bacteria feeds on tea and sugar in the fermenting liquid while it grows and multiplies. After about a week or two of fermentation, the kombucha should be a bit tart, sweet and ready for carbonation! After a couple days of carbonation, the kombucha can be refrigerated and flavored to taste! The benefits of this interesting beverage mainly include but are not limited to improving digestive health and increasing energy levels. The drink does have less than 1% alcohol and a small amount of caffeine, depending on the tea used. In this article, I'll show you how to make a gallon of kombucha for the price of a pint at the store! It's a simple and relatively quick process... so let's check it out!
Kombucha looks kind of weird but never fear! It's normal!
First you will want to select your tea. Mostly, typical black teas are used but most types of tea will work. Some folks have had SCoBY die from using Earl Gray or anything with citrus in it but personally, I have used citrus teas to make kombucha and it came out well! I even had more SCoBY than I knew what to do with after those batches!
Once you've selected your tea, choose some large, open-top vessels to do your fermenting. I found some gallon sized glass mason jars with no lids at Wal-Mart that work perfectly for home use. With two of these gallon mason jars you can alternate the active brew vessel and the SCoBY storage vessel to maximize your storage and usage. You can also buy more and continually add to your production capacity! If you start to become overloaded with SCoBY, you can transfer to a larger vessel or simply discard the excess cultures.
The active ingredients in your fermenting process will include the SCoBY itself, tea and sugar. Water carries the solution and that's it! So the last things you'll need are sugar and an active culture. You can acquire active SCoBY from a fresh bottle of non-pasteurized store-bought kombucha. Or you can find a friend or farm store that has some active culture to spare. Lots of flea markets, farm stands and homsteaders have kombucha! To start your new culture from a small SCoBY, simply brew 3 quarts of tea with about 10 tea bags and a cup of sugar. Place the SCoBY and about a cup of store bought kombucha in the brew and allow the culture to form a new colony on the surface of the brew for about two weeks. I use a piece of cloth over the top of the jar secured with a rubber band to keep flies out while the brew is forming a new colony or while actually brewing kombucha.
The resulting mixture will technically be kombucha but it may or may not be fully fermented and it probably won't have the taste you are accustomed to. It will take some time to experiment with the amount of tea brewed, sugar added and time fermented and carbonated to understand how you prefer your kombucha to taste!
You can brew good kombucha with black tea or green tea!
Now that you have a nice healthy SCoBY and a batch of starter kombucha, you can begin to prepare a batch of kombucha to your taste. I like to brew 12 to 15 Bigelow Earl Gray tea bags with a cup and a half of sugar per gallon. I let this super-sweet tea cool down for a few hours to room temperature (don't add your SCoBY to hot water, it will kill it!) After the tea is well cooled, add about a half cup of the jelly-like SCoBY and a cup of the starter kombucha to kick-start the fermentation. Cover the jar with a cloth and rubber band and let it ferment for about 12-16 days.
High quality black teas are my favorite culture food!
Check on the brew every few days and see if there is a new SCoBY colony forming on the top of the new brew jar. If there is, you're on your way to a great batch of kombucha! Sometimes it takes a week or more for new colonies to form, so be patient and don't disturb the brew! It's totally normal for the SCoBY to form weird looking black and tan tendrils and to see debris floating in the tea. The brew may also start to form some bubbles! I find this to be really exciting and it means your fermentation process is strong!
After you have a solid fermentation and the kombucha smells yeasty and tastes tart but still sweet, you can strain and bottle the kombucha into smaller mason jars or however you see fit. Seal and leave the bottles in room temperature but out of direct light for about 3 days, but no longer than that, to carbonate. I know my brew has carbonated because I bottle them into mason jars and the lids will pop up and become very firm when the gases inside the jar have expanded properly. I then place these jars into the refrigerator to cool and stop the carbonation process. After a day or so, your kombucha is ready for every day consumption!
I thoroughly enjoy making my own kombucha because it's so easy and cheap! Having the skills and experience to provide yourself with new and healthy foods is always rewarding and this project can cost as little as a few dollars for tea and sugar! What a great science fair project for kids, too! I hope you all enjoy this simple kombucha tea recipe and give it a try. It's super refreshing, especially with a cool salad at lunch during the spring and summer!
Let me know how you like your kombucha or any little tips and tricks I should try with my next batch! Also don't hesitate to ask me about how to make kombucha with different flavors and mixtures or about anything during the process! See ya Steemit!
