Kombucha Making

I spoke some time back about how I was experimenting with making some kombucha and I realized that while I had taken pictures of the progress I hadn't shared it with you, so I thought I'd take a minute to bring the blog up to date with the progress on that front.

To start with I needed to get a SCOBY started. For those not yet initiated in the ways of kombucha, a SCOBY is an acronym for Sybiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast.
This was the "mini"-SCOBY that I started with. It was collected from a store bought bottle of kombucha that a friend of mine gave me. To grow it into something that I could make a sizeable quantity of Kombucha from I placed in this bowl full of sweetened green tea. The Yeasts in the SCOBY consume the sugars in the tea and ferment it producing alchohol. This alchohol is then consumed, through further fermatation, by the various (beneficial) bacteria to produce acetic acid. An additional by product is the Cellulose that makes up the body of the SCOBY.

Now, biology lesson completed, I was successful in culturing my SCOBY into a nicely formed disc of Bacteria and Yeast which I would now send forth to do my komucha bidding!
That white color is from the cellulose that I was talking about.

Although you can't really see the bacteria, being microscopic and all, if you look in the photo below you can see the whispy tendrils hanging from the main body of the SCOBY. Those are mainly yeasts. Many of them being the same types that do our work for us in other goodies like Sourdough and kefir.
In fact, I was successful enough in culturing my SCOBY that I am now able to have two gallon Suntea jars going constantly brewing for me.


Now that only problem I have is that I'm running out of bottles. These bottles were from my Mr Beer experiment last year and have come in handy for bottling the finished product.

Kombucha is a naturally effervescent drink because as the yeast comsume the sugars, they also "breath" out CO2 as a by-product. After bottling the kombucha, I let it sit at room temperature for 3-4 days during which time it continues to brew and breath. The bottling holds in the CO2 and when it's opened. Phzzttt... Carbonated!

It's an acquired taste, I will say that for it, but once you've acquired it, you gotta have it. There's been some issues with the labeling on some of the store bought Kombucha out there lately and some of it has been pulled form the shelves. The nice part about making your own, as with all things, is that you always know what's in it, and more to the point that you can always get it!

You should try it out. You may not even like it after trying, but it's a great science experiment and fun to watch progress. If you do try... good luck!
P~