Beer ware and scoby

Does SCOBE and Kefir have bad stuff like brett? Just as I stuck my racking cane in I thought oh s...
Luckily just a few pieces, airlocks and such. Wonder if I can even clean the stuff with my beer cleaning gear or should I isolate it, like with lambic gear?
Probably not worth the risk but would like to know if anyone has any insight.

BTW, Speed Brewing by Mary Izett has some great recipes for alcoholic Kumbucha and Kefir, along some other interesting stuff. Grood book.

Kombucha cultures do contain bacteria, if that's what you mean. SCOBY stands for "Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast", after all.

There is always a chance of cross-contamination when mixing equipment used for regular beer making with equipment used for sour beers and other bacterial brews.

Personally, I would used separate equipment.

Be afraid, be very afraid...View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1442014083.706324.jpg

My wife borrowed some bottles for her Kombucha and even with good cleaning and sanitation I managed to grow a SCOBY in my APA. Didn't taste too bad actually but certainly not what I was going for.

smit70136 said:

Be afraid, be very afraid...View attachment 302642

My wife borrowed some bottles for her Kombucha and even with good cleaning and sanitation I managed to grow a SCOBY in my APA. Didn't taste too bad actually but certainly not what I was going for.

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WHAT!?! Seriously!? How big WAS the SCOBY? And how long did you leave it sitting? (and define good cleaning...)

SCOBY beer - sounds like an off-shoot of a sour ale. Interesting... interesting...

[Edit] - Just saw the picture. AWESOME (in a less than awesome sort of way) - was it just the one bottle?

Infection seemed limited to only two bottles - one (seen in the previous post) did actually result in a small SCOBY but the second was just a gelatinous mess (think Ghostbusters). Both were highly over-carbed.
All bottles get rinsed immediately after use, a bath in extremely hot soapy water, a thorough rinse before and after storage, and a 4 minute soak in sanitizer before being hung on the bottle tree (which has also had a sanitizer bath). Bottles are then immediately filled and capped. We're speculating that perhaps the bottle tree could have been the point of infection since she also hangs her bottles there as well (although never at the same time). The lesson to us has really been to keep the beer and Kombucha very, very separate.

Great lesson! Thanks for sharing it!