Recent content by mevla

Hello. I've tried the scoby hotel for about a bit more than month. I've put one scoby in there, along with two cups of the current batch at that time. Now that I open it up I find five scobies, of different shades and colors. See below. The thick one at the upper left was the one on top...

Hello, Thanks for the help so far. I'm now trying to pause the 'production' to try out the scoby hotel function. I've taken two cups of the latest batch and put the scoby in it, in a smallish jar closed by a lid. I thought it can't go wrong doing it that way. I did not add any sugar, any...

I've seen digital pH testers sold at amazon that seems good for this use. What would be the pH range to look for in a healthy kombucha brew ? Also, regarding pH, what is the role of tea, does it have any ? Sugar certainly affects the pH of the initial brew when a new batch is started...

Thanks. Very useful. Now is it possible to measure the 'potency' of a kombucha brew ? How would it be possible to clearly demonstrate that there's a difference between a kombucha brew, and one that was made only from sweet tea w/o any kombucha starter nor pellicle ?

Thanks for your patience. So it means that the neighbour, instead of giving me a thick SCOBY, could have given me some 2 cups of a 'ripe' kombucha brew and it would have worked all the same for me to start making kombucha ? By the same token, a commercially bought kombucha brew can be used to...

I waited for the current batch to complete, didn't want to disturb it, so I can take pictures. Thanks for mentioning that the culture is in the brew. At first I didn't get it, now I do. So here's how it looks like, top and bottom. From what I understand so far, the thin top is discarded while...

Hello. I've now made a full 2nd fermentation batch using large 3.5l glass jugs (with spigots) in which the SCOBY floats horizontally. Previous batches were made in narrow containers in which the SCOBY was vertical. Now I can see what is meant by "pellicle'. Previously there was some stuff...

Hello, I'm rather new to brewing kombucha and have made so far a few batches, all with second fermentation (apples and ginger). I'm totally sold. It tastes so good. Are SCOBIES everlasting ? How to tell if it's still going good ? Is there a way to gauge how well it does, how potent it is...

Thanks for the clarification. The statement "SCOBY is kombucha" did not made any sense for me because 'cha', historically exported from a northern access to China, is totally interchangeable with the word gotten from a southern access who heard 'te' which became in English 'tea' , both...

This is what I hopefully described in the first post. Here are two pictures. As I hopefully clearly mentioned, this is the 2nd fermentation, meaning that there was no scoby in there. What was added to the original kombucha brew were apple and ginger pieces, and brown sugar. What is shown...

Do you mean it's normal to have pieces of fruits right into the scoby, part of the scoby itself ? I haven't seen any pictures of that so far nor any mention of it.

Hello all. I'm new to kombucha making although I did other fermentation such as koji, amazaké, miso, kvass, shoyu, natto, jiuniang. I did maybe 4 batches of kombucha so far and early on adopted a second fermentation, with apple and ginger pieces (plus more sugar) left at room temp for a week...