How to make Kombucha

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Aug 12, 2010
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Location
Fort Collins, CO
Hello,
I want to start brewing my own Kombutcha but I haven't found reliable how to instructions. Could someone either tell me how to do it or direct me to where I can find good instructions. I tried to brew one in the past but it didn't work. I am not that into refined sugar so I tried to use honey, I don't know if that was my mistake or if something else was.
Thank you for all your help!
Wails
 
Depends whether or not you have a SCOBY. I also would not brew with honey as there is a large portion that is non-fermentable. If you have a thing against white sugar try using agave syrup or something similar. Just know you are spending way more money than necessary for the same results.

Most kombucha websites I found came off as overtly amateurish and often you get hippies throwing in perspectives that are non-scientific. The one thing to know is that it is pretty easy and the instructions are basic.

First thing is first: do you have a SCOBY?
 
Youtube has a lot of videos, but take each one for what it is worth. vacax is right though... you have to have a SCOBY (Simbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast). Since they have pulled the drink from health food stores, due to it having alcohol in it, it is harder to find a culture starter. They should rectify the problem soon and then maybe have to show an ID to buy a commercial example to start your own from. I have been researching for a homemade starter from nothing, but to no avail. It seems the different varieties of what makes up a SCOBY are hard to find.
 
I don't have a SCOBY, my plan was to use the glob from a GT brew, but I never thought about them being pulled now.
So what is your suggestion of where to go from here???
 
In CA the shelves are being restocked right now. The GT brand is to return to the shelves next week. The lady at the store said GT is the best.

BW
 
This is good news that it is hitting your shelves again. I have had GT and it is good. Oklahoma is unsure if they need more tax or not with the beverage (they want their alcohol dollars), so I am scared I might have to drive somewhere to get my SCOBY starter in the form of a GT beverage. Maybe Texas has them on their shelves....
 
I don't know if you would find it in your area, but my local craigslist usually has people selling SCOBYs for $10 or so.
 
honestly I wouldn't really pay anyone for a scoby as either you can just buy some bottled GT kombucha and start from there or just ask someone how makes Kombucha for a scoby. I usually end up just giving mine away since I tend to make a lot and have more then I know what to do with.

Also as said you should really just use white sugar, its much cheaper and the critters in your tea will love it.
 
Ok, so once you have your shroom cap from your mother, do you put that cap into your tea, or are you pouring your whole starter in there? Then once you are ready to bottle your tea, what do you do with the cap?
 
Your shroom cap is your mother. Since you made a starter it more than likely will be small which the mushroom will grow to the size of your vessel. Your starter should be sour or acidic which should be added to the tea you plan to ferment to help lower the PH to prevent any contamination from undesirables. Once you've got to the level of acidity you want in your tea you may bottle it up (beware though as it'll continue to eat through the sugars which can end up as bottle bombs). You reserve some of the soured tea with the mother (shroom cap) in it for your next brew. I have a 2 gallon vessel and I leave my mother in there with about 1/8th of the liquid until I have another batch of tea ready to go into it.

Here is a general rule I go by for formulating a recipe stepping it up or down as necessary:

For 1 Gallon:

6-8 bags of Tea (depending on how strong you want it)
1 cup sugar
About 1/2 - 1 pint of previous kombucha

Boil about 1/3 of the water, remove from heat and steep tea for 15 mins. Add sugar to dissolve and then cool. Add previous kombucha and water to make up 1 gallon and add to vessel. Put mother back into tea and allow to ferment for 2 weeks or longer depending on your taste. If you let it go beyond a month or so, you'll end up pretty much with vinegar (I mean if that's what you like).

Have fun.
 
Rad!

Ok, so you keep about 1/8th of the mother to store the cap in. Then, would you add more of the fermented tea back into the mother to top it off?
 
The cap (mushroom/mother) goes into the tea that is fermenting. I mean without it'll end up rebuilding another but it'll take it a bit longer to ferment. But yeah (I guess 1/8 is a bad estimate) when storing the cap (when you are not fermenting any) I'd keep enough of the fermented tea with it to keep it satisfied and from drying out.
 
I also would not brew with honey as there is a large portion that is non-fermentable.

No, there isn't. Honey is basically completely fermentable, with 1-2% being complex sugars that might not ferment, compared to around 80% simple sugars.
 
Has anyone kegged their kombucha brew? I know many people say not to let metal touch the brew . . . but will properly cleaned stainless steel cause problems? I know there are a few companies out there selling kegged kombucha and from what I can tell, they aren't using kombucha specific equipment.
 
Honey has them antimicrobial traits to it, so bear that in mind especially with a young/nonexistent mother. You might do fine with a big fat mother like I have, especially if you do part honey and part sugar (or agave syrup if table sugar's not your thing)..
 
Yes, quite. I probably should have been more helpful in my last post, but I have a knee-jerk reaction every time someone claims honey contains high proportions of non-fermentable sugars.

While quite a bit of honey's antimicrobial properties come from the high concentration of sugar and won't be much of an issue once you dilute it, there are other factors in play (PH and chemical compounds) that make it less attractive for culturing your scoby.

Time for my second knee-jerk topic: refined just means pure. Table sugar contains no bee parts or other organic ash, no extra chemicals that your bacteria might dislike, no water. Honey's composition is extremely close to that of one of the most reviled forms of "refined" sugar, high fructose corn syrup. HFCS is fructose, glucose, and water; honey is mainly fructose, glucose and water, with some sucrose (more familiarly, refined table sugar), maltose, and small amounts of misc. thrown in. Excessive amounts of sugar are bad for you, no matter if they're purified first or not. You probably wouldn't think replacing the table sugar with HFCS a great idea, so why do you think honey is the way to go?

Anyway, if you're determined to use honey: I recommend doing your initial culture using table sugar, thus avoiding any issues arising from honey's antimicrobial properties, then discarding most of that liquid and replacing it with your real, honey-sweetened base once your scoby is going strong.
 
Back
Top