just made my first scoby.

it's a pretty looking pearly white scoby, about a quarter inch thick. i made it with few black tea bags, few spoons of sugar, nothing specific.. it's been about 5 or 6 days and blammo. when i smell it, it smells like a bottle of GT.

so is this the final product?? can i drink this?

i would like to drink 16oz a day, how much do you brew to maintain your daily drinking habit?

is determining the pH a must? i honestly dont plan on doing that unless i have too.

also what does "booch" mean? just reading this forum i see this word, when i google it.. urban dictionary says its a ***** and a hoochie.

thanks for helping a newbie out.

I let mine go for 7 days and bottle and start my next batch (every sunday afternoon like clockwork). How long you let yours ferment depends on your personal taste.

You can certainly drink it after 5 or 6 days. Taste it. If it tastes good to you, it's ready.

I brew 1 gallon batches weekly. This is enough for seven 16oz bottles plus my starter tea for the next batch. One a day.

I've never bothered measuring pH. If you follow a proven recipe, you should be fine.

"booch" is just another nickname for kombucha. kombucha --> kom-booch-a --> booch

thanks hunter i appreciate the response. mind sharing your recipe?? i just ordered a gallon vessel and a 12pack of bottles on amazon. ready to get this operation started.

hunter_la5 said:

I let mine go for 7 days and bottle and start my next batch (every sunday afternoon like clockwork). How long you let yours ferment depends on your personal taste.

You can certainly drink it after 5 or 6 days. Taste it. If it tastes good to you, it's ready.

I brew 1 gallon batches weekly. This is enough for seven 16oz bottles plus my starter tea for the next batch. One a day.

I've never bothered measuring pH. If you follow a proven recipe, you should be fine.

"booch" is just another nickname for kombucha. kombucha --> kom-booch-a --> booch

Click to expand...

8 single-serve tea bags (I do half black, half green)
1 cup white sugar
1 gallon water
8-16oz starter tea from previous batch ( I usually get 8x16oz bottles per batch. Drink 7, use one for starting the next)

1) bring 1/2 gallon of water to a boil. Reserve other 1/2 gallon in fridge to chill.
2) stir in sugar to dissolve, remove from heat.
3) steep tea bags in water for 5-10 minutes, remove and let sweet tea cool
4) while tea is cooling, bottle previous batch to clear fermenter. Reserve last 8-16 oz for starter tea. If this is your first batch, use a bottle of unflavored commercial kombucha instead.
5) remove Scoby from fermenter, if there is one. Pour tea and cold water into fermenter. The cold water should finish the cooling process.
6) once tea is at room temperature, pour in starter tea. Add Scoby, if applicable.
7) ferment seven days, repeat process weekly.

If you want to flavor your booch, add this to the bottles, not the fermenter. I like to add some fresh ginger root (cut into matchsticks) to each bottle. 2-3 oz of fresh 100% juice (such as grape juice) per 16oz bottle makes a nice flavoring as well.

1 gallon tea seems to be retarded compared to the 1 quart starter tea i made last week.
this is day 5, tea is cloudy and the scoby seems to have started to collapse.. i did move it to another room on day 3, i think that may have maybe trigger it. but why so cloudy and weak scoby? smells a bit sweet but also vinegary

The SCOBY is fine. Sometime is will flip over or sink. This is normal.

I'm guessing the cloudiness is just from the active fermentation going on. Nothing about your batch really looks out of the ordinary to me.

thanks hunter, mind at ease.

A larger volume will take a bit longer just because the colony has to propagate more to ferment it.

hunter, at the end of your first fermentation period what does your tea taste like? mine is mostly sweet with a hint of tart and decided to delay the start of my 2nd ferm cycle. should i be looking for the ideal flavor before i start the 2nd ferm or should i try to figure in some additional flavor changes?

skadalajara said:

A larger volume will take a bit longer just because the colony has to propagate more to ferment it.

Click to expand...

makes sense, thanks.

Mostly tart (but not overbearingly so) with a hint of sweet.

Sounds to me like it just needs to sit a bit longer.

WeirdScience said:

i would like to drink 16oz a day, how much do you brew to maintain your daily drinking habit?

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I use a two gallon sun tea jar with a spout. This gets me about 10-12 16oz GT bottles (I take to lunch every day) along with 3-4 larger liquor bottles (I use to pour a glass for breakfast every morning).

I figure 7-9 days to ferment (depending on the ambient temperature in the brewshop) and then 4-6 days in primed bottles to carbonate. Generally I brew every weekend plus or minus a day.

WeirdScience said:

i would like to drink 16oz a day, how much do you brew to maintain your daily drinking habit?

Click to expand...

Well, that's easy: you need to make 16oz per day on average (so that's 112 oz or 7/8 gallons per week)...

Whut happens if I use flavored booch to grow my first scoby?

Which store bought booch are yall harvesting from?

Zuljin said:

Whut happens if I use flavored booch to grow my first scoby?

Click to expand...

The End of Days.

Zuljin said:

Which store bought booch are yall harvesting from?

Click to expand...

Buddhas Brew. Other folks've used GT's.

hunter_la5 said:

The End of Days.




Buddhas Brew. Other folks've used GT's.

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Trying to make one now. Used Holy Kombucha blood orange. Says it's all natural, raw and live. Even says you might see strands of live culture in it. I didn't, but it had some trub. Also, it's a Go Texan product. So, with any luck, the end of days are near.

Is this anything? I think this is something.

Looks like the beginning of a thing. Maybe.

Hard to tell from the 1,536,000 blurry pixels.

hunter_le five said:

8 single-serve tea bags (I do half black, half green)
1 cup white sugar
1 gallon water
8-16oz starter tea from previous batch ( I usually get 8x16oz bottles per batch. Drink 7, use one for starting the next)

1) bring 1/2 gallon of water to a boil. Reserve other 1/2 gallon in fridge to chill.
2) stir in sugar to dissolve, remove from heat.
3) steep tea bags in water for 5-10 minutes, remove and let sweet tea cool
4) while tea is cooling, bottle previous batch to clear fermenter. Reserve last 8-16 oz for starter tea. If this is your first batch, use a bottle of unflavored commercial kombucha instead.
5) remove Scoby from fermenter, if there is one. Pour tea and cold water into fermenter. The cold water should finish the cooling process.
6) once tea is at room temperature, pour in starter tea. Add Scoby, if applicable.
7) ferment seven days, repeat process weekly.

Click to expand...

Making my first batch. Is it normal to have black strains hanging down into the tea. Thank you for any reply.

Mary D said:

Making my first batch. Is it normal to have black strains hanging down into the tea. Thank you for any reply.

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Yes. It will get thicker and more uniform over time. I forgot about mine sitting in my closet for a few months. The scoby was about 4 inches thick and all of the kombucha had either evaporated or got absorbed. It looked like a monster. Oh yeah don’t flush a scoby down the toilet.....

Br3w4u said:

Yes. It will get thicker and more uniform over time. I forgot about mine sitting in my closet for a few months. The scoby was about 4 inches thick and all of the kombucha had either evaporated or got absorbed. It looked like a monster. Oh yeah don’t flush a scoby down the toilet.....

Click to expand...

Thank you. I will remember not to flush. lol

Pretty sure the dark danglers are yeast, no issues.

My first home-grown scoby started out as a film on top of the brew; the mother scoby was on the bottom. I was just careful not to disrupt this film, carefully guiding my ladle around it. It eventually got nice and thick. I have two big scobies now; I removed the new growth from one to give to a friend; funny, underneath was the same white circular scoby I had started out with. These old scobies always float now; they ferment very quickly. I seldom bother to check the pH. I find I keep the brew in the room-temp secondary fermentation longer so they get tangy (I use blueberries or dried ginger; blueberry season is ending so I have to figure out what to use next). I make 2.5 gallons at a time; I will see if I make less as the weather cools down.