fuzzy white blobs in bottom of kombucha. Mold?

Soooo... I'm completely new to this whole kombucha brewing thing. I actually got a starter culture for my birthday (dehydrated, from local co op.) Went through the whole rehydration process and started my second batch with the original scoby and some of the original brew. It's about day six now and i've noticed little fuzzy white balls forming on and below the sunken scoby. I've searched high and low for an answer; what the heck is this?! It looks a lot like mold to me. It doesn't smell funky and so far it tastes edible. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Boiled jar, rinsed with vinegar. I did have empty beer bottles on my counter several feet away for about a day?

To me that just looks like yeast.

The pictures are really small on the mobile app, I cant tell.
However, mold does not grow under water. It would grow on the surface. It would also look exactly like what you would expect to see on bread, white, blue, or green and fuzzy.
You can expect more earthy tones in your brew. Browns and tans, creamy white SCOBY, etc. But never anything fuzzy on the surface.

It seems like no mold i've ever heard of. Think it could be maybe cross contamination from beer or something? I do have it on top of my fridge and my downstairs neighbors frequently like to play music that rattles my floor and everything resting on it. maybe just rogue yeast cultures that decided to make floating colonies? If I move it slightly I can see the little fuzzy arm bits flailing around slightly.

So you think it should be okay? just strain um out?

Thanks much guys!

Sure just strain them out, and if it looks, smells and tastes fine, it probably is fine.

kyt said:

Sure just strain them out, and if it looks, smells and tastes fine, it probably is fine.

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Cool. I'll probably get back to you soon, then, if it is fine.

I just had to dump a whole small jar today because it was bad. It was an experiment I didn't expect to turn out. It didn't.
It smelled like vomit mixed with diarrhea. The surface growth looked like a thin crumbly sponge growing.

kyt said:

I just had to dump a whole small jar today because it was bad. It was an experiment I didn't expect to turn out. It didn't.
It smelled like vomit mixed with diarrhea. The surface growth looked like a thin crumbly sponge growing.

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So..... You tried it, right? looks yummy. >_<



On topic! Strained my batch out and it tastes pretty darn fine to me, for the first real batch to come out of my rehydrated scoby. Bottled it with some grape and cranberry juice two days ago now. Pretty stoked for the end result.

Consensus, fuzzy white blobs probably are not terrible and still make a pretty okay batch of KT.

blackplaid said:

So..... You tried it, right? looks yummy. >_<

On topic! Strained my batch out and it tastes pretty darn fine to me, for the first real batch to come out of my rehydrated scoby. Bottled it with some grape and cranberry juice two days ago now. Pretty stoked for the end result.

Consensus, fuzzy white blobs probably are not terrible and still make a pretty okay batch of KT.

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Lol I most certainly did not try it!

Glad to hear you're pleased with the results! Great job!

So... upon further analysis, fuzzy blobs mean yeast city. Successive ferment left me with zero signs of bacteria activity, more carbonation than a can of soda, and my sunken "scoby" started hot air ballooning out the top of the jar. Oh, and it smelled like warm acidic dough meets warm stale beer. YAY. Needless to say, yeast city has found it's way into city sewage to flourish and thrive and build it's own yeast empire.

Moving forward, I'm having luck growing a scoby with a bottle of GT's original and I received two scobys from a friend which are FLOURISHING.

I can't say I wouldn't recommend a dehydrated starter, as I'm sure there was human error involved in my process. Just be sure to be sterile. Also, I'd highly recommend distilled water.

I as well, I only used distilled water.