You folks really ferment tea??

I never heard of this. I just joined a few weeks ago and have been most interested in the wine and cider end of homebrewing.

Does anyone have any links that could give me more details on using tea?

Your best source of info is probably google/wikipedia. From what I know, Kombucha is a tea fermented by a collection of yeast that form a colony called a SCOBY which sort of looks like either a blob or jellyfish (like the thing that turns alcohol into vinegar). You pretty much have this and tea and let it sit for a while and drain the tea out and replace it with fresh sweeteened tea every so often. Many people seem to use a container with a drain under it so they can take a glass to drink, and refill from the top. It's a nice tangy drink which can often be slightly carbonated on its own natural fermentation process.

Different people use different teas, green, black. Personally, I prefer when people use a good quality black tea, but that's just me.

It does have a bit of alcohol due to the fermentation so a few places had to take raw drinks off the market but those of us here make their own. Or knows someone who does.
I was actually making Kefir (fermented milk) but I know a few people who make Kombucha in my area. The Scoby actually reproduces quite rapidly so if you find a person, it's easy to aquire your own for free. Its actually harder to find people to give the extras away to and they usually wind up in a compost pile.

Edit: Oh yeah, there seems to be people who make a regular fermented tea using plain yeast and sweet tea, as if it were a wine or beer.

If you're going to get into it, go the way of "continuous" brewing, as described here - http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/1742-continuous-brewing-kombucha.html - that's really the best way. And it works well. And YES, it's great for you! really really is... I love it. Of course, you can buy it, but at $4/pint, well.... no thanks, I brought my own.

A few other good sites, some intro, some not so (remember, there are many different methods, they don't necessarily mix, and MOST do not integrate the continuous method linked above so keep that in mind when getting information):

http://www.seedsofhealth.co.uk/fermenting/kombucha_howto.shtml

http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/789879/growing-my-own-kombucha-scoby <--- I don't particularly like that site, but it's a very informative thread for Kombucha.

A good search will provide you with literally millions of hits. 99% are garbage. It's good enough on its own without all the BS voodoo mumbojumbo supermagicalness some idio - I mean, people - try to attach to it.

One thing you'll notice right away if you're prone to being constantly cold or chilled in the wintertime is that it'll make you feel WARM. A very good kind of warm. At least that's what the cold-blooded ladies say.

It's not fermented to a high alcohol like your beer or wine. In fact, the yeast convert the sugar into alcohol and one of the bacterial elements (acetobacter) converts the alcohol to acetic acid (vinegar) and several other pretty amazing compounds.... I guess the best way is to try it yourself... Of the many great things about making it yourself, perhaps my favorite is that you get to control the taste. I like mine still fairly sweet with just the start of a vinegary bite, much like fresh cider that's starting to turn. In fact, if it ages too long (for my tastes) and leans more heavily toward a vinegar flavor, I mix apple cider in with it and >BAM!< take it up a notch! lol!

Long ago, my youngest sister told me: "You'd ferment a stick if you could figure out a way how." I was fermenting everything in sight. I had also made fuel ethanol and converted a lawnmower and 2 tractors to run on it; I had 2 different carburettors for each tractor, one for ethanol in summer and then the original carb's for gasoline in the winter. The lawnmower - well, obviously, we didn't run it in 7 feet of snow. That was many years ago, back in the early to mid-70's. I guess making Kombucha, and also making maple wine (coming from a tree), I'm as close to fermenting a stick as I'll ever get.

I say go for it, it's amazingly simple and the best part is, it's freakin' free. Well, practically. And it's like one of the original probiotics. What's better than having a farm that produces food for you? Having these little critters inside of you (hey, you drink it, you drink them, right???), making food for you; after they've made the good stuff for you, they keep on working to convert some of the otherwise indigestible waste products in your digestive tract into very beneficial and often lacking nutrients that your body is actually able to absorb. On a related note, look up "glucuronic acid." It has adsorptive (NOT "absorb," but "adsorb;" look that up, too!) properties and is relatively abundant in Kombucha. That alone makes it worth my while, even if I had to buy it.

Yeah, I get long-winded about stuff that I know is as good as this. Do it. You won't regret it.

- Tim

Thanks for the info. I actually am in day three of an experiment of sorts... I am fermenting some brewed tea. I am not expecting a lot. But I just never heard of fermenting tea. This forum has been very helpful as I read over past threads.

Tim...I am fermenting sticks and leaves right now...from a plant called GESHO. A wine called T'ej, an Ethiopian honey wine. Fabulous thus far...and it is ready in 5 short weeks...very rare in wine making!! You can find gesho inchet and kit (wood and leaves) at Ethiopian markets or www.brundo.com carries them. SO, tell your sister you know how to ferment a stick!! (or you know someone who knows how).

Tim, you just blew my mind. I have been drinking kombucha for about a month now, and my fiance and I love it. There are definitely noticeable benefits to the stomach. I cant wait to see the long term benefits over the course of my life.

I have never heard of the continuous brewing method, but it sounds exactly like a solara method for aging beer/liquorr but way faster. I have been dying to brew a solara beer so this sounds awesome to me. Does it taste any more sour with this method?
Have you ever tried putting oak chips into the fermenter?

I plan to try a continuous brew with my current spigotless jug and go with a bigger one if its as cool as it sounds.

Tip: Our favorite flavors are frozen raspberry and fresh ginger, separately. Although I did just bottle a batch with the two mixed.

I'm not at all familiar with solara, maybe I am with the concept if I knew it but not with anything I'm aware of associated with the term so I can't answer that.

With the continuous method, you're looking at mere days to accomplish what the "batch" method can take weeks to accomplish. A lot depends on tempreature and the overall age of your kombucha. Also, having a draw-off at the bottom of the vessel is best, otherwise you'll have lees and sediment that will build up, making it necessary to perform some "housekeeping" with the contents. And since these are not your cultured wine or beer yeasts at work here, the lees don't approach anything that might in any way be thought of as "compact." JAOM lees are more compact than these! Also, I suspect that the critters feeding on the dead yeast might begin to contribute off-flavors or other issues over time. That said, my current set-up is spigotless. Not for much longer, I hope. But it works. Anyways, as far as sour, I presume you mean vinegary, and yes it can develop a pretty nose-blasting fizz-burn quality if you let it go for more than a few days without a draw-off and replenish. It seems to be that 3 days is best for my situation, i.e. temperatures, vessel size, ingredients, etc. YMMV.

Again, if you have a spigot vessel for bottom draw-off, in my case I find that to be preferable to spigotless (even though as already stated, currently brewing spigotless). Determine vessel size by first determining consumption and use by family size, and use that as your basis for draw-off (10-20% at a time), then solve for brewing container size.

I've never added anything but the sweet tea recipe. Be careful: if you're going to flavor, then I strongly suggest that you do it to the quantity that you draw off, AFTER you've drawn it off; you'll never really get the flavor out using the continuous method, and you may not like it when it still has that character (or worse, depending on what the critters have turned it into) months down the road, and it only gets compounded by other future additions. Flavor what you drink or bottle, not what you're brewing. If you insist on flavoring your kombucha as it brews, you'd be well advised to go with the batch method instead. I know that you didn't state that you plan on going that way, I'm just putting it out there (here) for other readers to consider.

Oak chips, I don't think I'd do that. But that's just me. I can't think of anything they'd positively contribute to something that's already got bite and body (think in terms of Kenny Wayne Shepherd's song, "Blue on Black"), but I do think they'd increase the risk of unintended infection and/or, conversely, may contain elements that may inhibit or kill (or alter) certain organisms comprising the SCOBY and others in the mix. I don't know, I just am not about to experiment much - I don't have the time anymore. Let us know if you try it, though, and the results!

Good luck to you, chask31 et al! Oh and saramc, yes, I've had T'ej and saw it on the Dogfish Head show whenever it was on, whatever it was called... BUT, I haven't fermented it yet! lol! Yeah, I've already told her, after your suggestion. I did thoroughly enjoy it but I was badly rushed at the time. I do want to get some going, I just haven't had a free container in months....

- Tim

Tim, I only add the fruit in bottles.

As far as Solara goes, it is typically used for lambic beer and the steps are as follows:
1- fill your oak wine barrel (typically 60 gal) with fresh lambic wort)
2 - add your yeast and bacteria (lambic uses alot of the same bacteria as kombucha)
3 - age for a year or two
4 - draw off 10-20 gallons and bottle or keg (you can add fruit the same way we do in kombucha)
5 - top off the barrel with fresh wort.

You can see why I think these two are similar. I found this oak barrel for kombucha online and was wondering if anyone has tried it. It sounds pretty good.

http://www.happyherbalist.com/212gallonoakcask.aspx

I of course do not work for or endorse this company.

You can get better barrel prices here: http://oakbarrelsltd.com/5-liter-oak-barrel-with-black-steel-hoops.html
*and I do not work for/or endorse this company either....just love bargains.