Have you guys ever brewed up some Kombucha?

I've recently become addicted to this tonic:
Kombucha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

However, you can only buy it at organic stores and it's very expensive (~$3 for 16oz). It's very low in calories (about 35 calories in 8oz), contains caffeine, and a tad bit of alcohol (~.5% or less). It is carbonated and has a quenching tart, almost sour taste (reminds me of Gueze in a way).

I've been looking into homebrewing it and it seems incredibly easy. You simply make a tea (any kind), add a bunch of sugar, pitche your "SCOBY" (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast, including a lambic wild yeast strain) and let it ferment for a couple of days.

The problem is finding a SCOBY. It looks like a pancake/mushroom that floats on top of your tea "wort". The easiest way is to buy one pre-cultured, but I"ve heard you can also culture one from commercial kombucha (with mixed results).

Here's a decent resource on homebrewing it:
Kombucha Mushroom Tea

A friend of mine did this before. Never tried it and I think he stopped after a while. It looked nasty.

My SWMBO's roommate makes that stuff. It smells TERRIBLE!

It does look and smell pretty nasty(even the commercial stuff), but it tastes great

I found someone selling a SCOBY on craigslist a while ago. It might just be a crazy seattle hippie thing though.

LOL, ive been making kombucha for about 3 years now. its good, especially with ginger. it only takes about 7 - 10 days to brew, then you can either drink or bottle. if you bottle at the right time it will get nice and carbonated. it supposed to be real good for you. it kinda makes you feel weird if you drink a lot of it.

cheers

The kombucha mushroom people,
Sitting around all day,
Who can believe you,
Who can believe you,
Let your mother pray, (sugar)

my grandma used to make this stuff. bleh it was nasty. Mushroom decomposes and regrows in there. yum!

I've been brewing my own KT for the past couple of months and it's a lot of fun. Also much easier than brewing beer. A lot of people complain about the taste but it all depends on the type of dried fruit you toss into the grolsch bottles for the secondary fermentation. My best successes have been using dried cherries and ended up with something tasting like a cross between sparkling wine and apple cider. Most worst experience was using white raisins and it tasted like feet. The primary fermentation by-product is acetic acid (vinegar) and a bunch of B vitamins, so don't drink it right before you go to bed.

It's not that bad. My coworker was into it for a while. This like those other things you have to 'care for' like sourdough, etc. are fun for a stint but you have to be committed to keep it going ad-infinitum. I second the ginger in it.

Ive made this in the traditional method using 1 gallon glass jars. I am interested in getting back into it but I want to experiment using perhaps something like our standard fermenting buckets to make a nice big 5 gallon batch....does anyone know if this would work? Would I use an airlock or cover the top with cheesecloth?

I'm a long time brewer and former member who has been out of the brewing game and is ready ro start again. I have been gearing up to start out all-grain, probably with an easy pale ale or something.

But I too have become fascinated by kombucha, and simultaneously repulsed by it's price. I've found some great info on this thread about how to ferment it, but precious little talk about the tea itself.

Does anyone know what sort of tea the commercial brands use, or have you had any particular successes of your own?

i've been making kombucha for about 3 months or so now. my wife started buying it and the little "we must be able to make it ourselves" alarm went off in my head. i propagated a SCOBY from a commercial bottle (if you want the process, let me know). as far as tea goes, you want to make it with mostly green tea. there's something about the way black tea gets fermented that isn't a good mixture with the SCOBY. herbal teas are OK too, but I think green tea is the best. supposedly organic teas are better, but i've used both with positive results. when i bottle it, i usually just run the reused commercial bottles through a no-soap dishwasher cycle (sanitation is less important with kombucha) and fill them about 1/8 of the way with cranberry juice and put the kombucha on top of it. it's best when it sits at room temp for about 5 days and then into the fridge for at least a week. then it is fizzy upon opening. when i transfer it to the bottle, i think i lose a lot of fizz.

I made Kombucha for a while last year. It tasted good, but then I lost interest and let one batch sit for about two months, then threw out the brew, 'shroom and all.

I may start again, tho. I'd use something other than black tea this time around; it was a bit harsh and odd tasting.

My scoby came from a bottle of non filtered kombucha; I drank about three quarters of the bottle, then threw in the last quarter bottle in some black tea and sugar. The bottom of the bottle had little mushroom bits in it, so I was pretty sure there was enough bacteria in there to start a new colony. It worked out well.

yeah, you can actually just start a scoby from 1/4 or so of a bottle. just put it in a clean mason jar, put some cheesecloth over the top secured with a rubber band and let it sit for 2 weeks or so, you'll see a transparent scoby form at first and then it'll turn thicker and more opaque, that's when it's ready to start fermenting a larger batch.

I had someone come through the ER that I work in who thought they were sick from kombucha.

The person took a class at the local comunity college about brewing it, and sanitary conditions were not emphasizes during the class.

It was pretty nasty, There were fruit fly larvae in the tea.

you HAVE to make sure it's securely covered (tea towel and tight rubber band) and not infected, there are many websites that have pictures of what an infected batch looks like. there have been a few documented cases of people getting really sick from the homebrewed stuff, but if it tastes like the store bought stuff, you're likely OK. and it's pretty hard to screw up IMHO.