I left my bamboo spatula in while making kombucha.....

Thank God I'm not a surgeon, right? It was several months ago and I have resisted just throwing out my scoby.....it has been sitting "dormant" for a while and smells just fine. A friend suggested bamboo isn't necessarily poisonous.... does anyone have an opinion on this? I'm excited to start up again and I have another scoby starting from two bottles of Dave's GT....it would sure be nice to have TWO batches going at once, though.

Bamboo is somewhat antimicrobial, so if it was clean it's probably ok, combined with the low pH.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to making kombucha again.

I think that will be fine. The bamboo probably has the yeasts pretty well embedded into it though possibly so I wouldn't probably use it for other brewing tasks.

Bamboo does not contain toxic extractives that would leach out into your brew. In fact, Bamboo Shoots are quite tasty in certain foods. The biggest thing you'll have to be worried about is if it is not a single, solid piece of bamboo, but made with several pieces glued together. The glue may or may not contain chemicals that would be toxic. I never use any composite wooden utensils in cooking or brewing, as I don't want the glue in my food.

Short answer: you're probably fine.

Thanks for the input everyone! I don't brew anything else at home so that's not an issue....I do still use those particular spatulas, though. And I do love to eat bamboo in stir fries and salads. I really appreciate the comments - I have one batch going right now and today I buy another large jar to start the second batch of kombucha (with the scoby mentioned). So glad I found this forum.