Recent content by Sdaji

I got lazy with my cultures, left them all for months, tried to make new batches from them and none of them worked. Well, some smell like kombucha, some have SCOBYs but all have mould as well. Damn. I'll have to outsource a new culture!

You raise some good points, but none of it is definitive. My reckoning is that the probiotic benefit is likely to be there (it makes sense, kombucha microbes thrive in a very acidic environment, so if any microbes can survive in the gut they seem likely candidates) but is likely to be slight (I...

There are obviously live microbes in kombucha. The fact that you use kombucha as a source of microbes to make more kombucha is pretty clear evidence of that! The fact that if you leave kombucha longer, beyond the point at which you drink it, it continues to ferment rapidly for weeks shows that...

Oh wow, I just read the first article! What a load of crap! Kombucha isn't going to give you hepatitis or anthrax! ANTHRAX? For crying out loud, what nonsense. And how is kombucha going to interact dangerously with alcohol? It already has alcohol in it, there's nothing in it which reacts badly...

Peculiar article. He says the health benefits are unsubstantiated (mostly true) but then after dismissing almost all of what is said about kombucha he goes on to give some completely unsubstantiated reports of the very rare negative claims. If we're just going on completely unsubstantiated...

Can you explain why they can't? The microbes exist in the highly acidic environment, they're specialised microbes. The digestive system is acidic. I'm no expert on probiotics, but I don't see anything jumping out to me as being contradictory or puzzling.

There are live yeast and bacteria in the SCOBY, just as there are live people inside a bus or a building. Or maybe it's more like there are live pigs in a pig pen, and after a while a layer of $H!t builds up on the bottom and if you were too large to see an individual pig and picked up a big...

porcupine: I've wondered about that. I imagine it would brew normally, but it would be interesting to try. saramc: The 'SCOBY' is porous, like a sponge. I could get the exact same result you did by putting a plastic sponge in some liquid kombucha and putting that into the starter tea. It wasn't...

I've tried it in side by side brews lots of times now. Say, a litre of new sweet tea in each, 50ml of liquid and a 50ml SCOBY in one and 100ml of liquid and no SCOBY in the other. It seems the liquid actually contains more microbes, or maybe it's that the extra starter tea reduces the pH and...

I've been experimenting with not using SCOBYs when setting up cultures. I get lovely, thick, well-formed SCOBYs. I started wondering how adding a SCOBY was doing anything, since I heard about other people using the old SCOBY to make their next batch. The old SCOBY is submerged, sometimes even...

What's the difference between a SCOBY and a MOV? What are the main species of yeast and bacteria used to make vinegar? Do any of them overlap? It would be surprising if they don't, although it would also not be surprising if some types of vinegar are made with species which wouldn't make...

Just out of curiosity I tried sticking a shot of Bourbon into a glass of kombucha. The resulting cocktail was a very mild, mellow, bland, boring drink. Not offensive or unpleasant, but the alcohol in the Bourbon seemed to neutralise the acid and vice versa. A waste of two good things, unless...

I have no idea what you've been reading, but it's wrong! ;) Kombucha is brewed open air, so obviously new microbes can be introduced. If a new species or strain which can outcompete the existing one(s) gets in, it'll replace the existing one(s). In time I'm sure you end up with the best of...

Great idea! I've been meaning to get around to it for ages, but I've been too lazy to track down live vinegar. As said, kombucha is just made with yeast and Acetobacter. Vinegar uses the same stuff, but not at the same time. The microbes and acidity should all be there in vinegar to make it...

Right on! :D That sounds awesome! Carrot kombucha is one of the many things I plan to try :) Isn't it peculiar? Are you sure? I think SCOBY might be a bit of a misnomer. There's nothing in the SCOBY other than the lifeless cellulose that isn't in the liquid (someone correct me if I'm...