Kombucha vs vinegar

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kimberleegk

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Hi everyone,

I brewed my first batch of kombucha. I was away for 10 days, so it brewed for about 17 days. When I got back, it seemed like it had brewed well, but my boyfriend thinks it just tastes like vinegar. He said I used honey, so it might not have brewed properly.

How do I know if the kombucha is properly brewed? And is it bad to use honey? He says corn sugar is the best to use.

Thanks! Kimberlee
 
You can use any fermentable sugar, people use honey even molasses. It tastes like vinegar because you have glucobacter bacteria, normal expectation in kombucha. Happy Herbalist has a website which gives a great analysis of kombucha, organisms, what happens when.

Typically your starting pH of the sweet tea is around 5.0, after adding starter tea it is around 4.5-4.0, then after 7-14d ferment you could anticipate a pH of 3.5-2.8. Anything below 4.0 is considered safe for consumption in the absence of mold. Distilled vinegar has a pH around 2.5 to give you an idea of that degree of acidity.

Granulated sugar is probably the most widely used in kombucha.
 
@kimberleegk - you used the phrase "corn sugar" but at least in the U.S. that's not a commonly used expression for any type of sugar. Corn syrup is basically glucose, and folks don't use that to sweeten their tea before the primary ferment. The food industry was trying to use the phrase "corn sugar" as a replacement for the often-vilified HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), but afaik the FDA didn't approve that. So nobody says "corn sugar" and you really don't want to add HFCS to your Kombucha when table sugar is cheap, widely available to a consumer, and known to be exactly what the yeast want to dine on.

[ KevinM corrected me in the next post. I only know Kombucha, not beer brewing, so I guess I was out of my depth here ;) At least I learned there *is* such a thing as corn sugar. I'll leave that last paragraph as I originally wrote it ]

As saramc said, granulated sugar, aka table sugar, aka standard refined white sugar from sugar cane, aka sucrose, is what most people use.
 
Point of order. Corn sugar is commonly used when referring to dextrose, used when priming/carbonating beer in bottles.
Corn syrup is something else.

I'd go with honey as a sweetner, or a simple syrup from white or turbinado sugar. I suppose you could use hfcs, but its usually vanilla flavored.
 
It is generally advised to not use honey, especially unpasteurized honey (the best kind! [to eat]).
This is due to multiple factors which include contaminants, and it's natural antibacterial properties.
Using raw honey could contaminate your brew with wild yeasts you don't want, potentially taking over the batch. Honey, since it is a natural product, can contain any number of environmental toxins any number of bees could have come in contact with while flying around. Things like pollution, pesticides, herbicides, etc.
Also, honey is naturally antibacterial; you need bacteria for kombucha, otherwise you're just making tea beer... ew (sort of)
Yes, people have and do brew with honey. But you have to remember, the sweetener isn't for you, it's for the yeast. Yeast really like plain old white sucrose. They don't care about anything else mixed with it. So really using honey on the primary ferment is kind of a waste. Save it for some toast! Or I like just eating it plain, straight from the jar.
You'd most likely be better served using the honey in a secondary ferment instead.
 
I have never had an issue using raw honey in KT ferments. The scoby growth has been resilient. I would encourage anyone who adores honey to check into obtaining a Jun culture. It is a green tea + honey ferment with a KT like culture, though it clearly does not perform like KT. But KT does just fine in the presence of honey. An individual choice.
 
I have never had an issue using raw honey in KT ferments. The scoby growth has been resilient. I would encourage anyone who adores honey to check into obtaining a Jun culture. It is a green tea + honey ferment with a KT like culture, though it clearly does not perform like KT. But KT does just fine in the presence of honey. An individual choice.

Damn you! I love honey.

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