Noobie questions

Hi all! I'm Kelsey and new to the forum. This is my first time making booch and after reading tons of threads I have a question. My scoby is sunken which I know is normal and there's a "feathery" growth on it and there is no new scoby growing on top so I put it into a warmer location. I'll take a pic of this feathery growth in a sec. It didn't really look like any of the other scoby pics I've seen. I've been brewing this batch for three days. If I don't see scoby growth on top in the next couple days should I be worried? Is it normal for the sunken scoby to grow? After all I've read I thought new growth was only to take place on top of the liquid. It smells right by the way.

Also, to make the tea I used three extra large tea bags because they are big and one cup of sugar. I used something called "pH minus" safe for fish to lower the pH. I had vinegar but I didn't know I could use it at the time. (I'll let you know if I'm hospitalized)

Thanks in advance for any response

Kelsey

I'm looking at it on a phone, but that doesn't look worrisome to me.
I am curious, though, what this pH Minus is.

Ok, I just googled it. It's battery acid. Free sulfur ions tend to be bad for microbes.
In your shoes, I'd toss it and start a new batch.

Can I use the scoby still? Thanks for telling me it's battery acid. You would think battery acid would really hurt fish. There is something wrong with the brew I think for sure because there's no new scoby forming and its day five. Thank you for your reply.

Tossed the last batch and made a new batch. Scoby floated this time. It's one gallon. Used 3.75 tbs of vinegar. I hope this goes well. At least I'm not brewing battery acid.

What made you want to use Ph minus? Had you seen it in a recipe somewhere? On the new batch you started did you use the same scoby? It'd be good to know for those who might end up in your shoes

Hi, I used pH minus because I couldn't find unflavored kombucha for starter and I read it helps lower pH to inhibit bad things growing. It didn't occur to me I could have used vinegar till after. Yes, I used to same scoby because it still looked alive. There's something going on on top of my new batch but I'm not sure if it scoby growth but I imagine it is. Got pH test strips in the mail last night and the pH was 6 I'll recheck again today. I made this new batch Monday late at night and now its Thursday afternoon so I guess it hasn't been brewing that long.

5 days and no new scoby forming that I can tell. It smells like kombucha tho. PH test strips read 6.

Started another batch with green tea.

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Does this look right? This is day six.

Can only view one of the pics for some reason, but it looks like a pellicle is forming. As long as there's no blue, green, hair, fur, fuzz or bugs it should be fine.
Does it taste like kombucha or is it still sweet?
Also, what's the temperature like where it's brewing? I suspect it may be too cool.

I haven't tasted it yet. I will in a sec. I think the temperature is in the seventies.

Kpotta said:

I haven't tasted it yet. I will in a sec. I think the temperature is in the seventies.

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I always stick a straw in and taste mine 4-5 days in. Has the PH lowered yet?

PH hasn't lowered and I tasted it, it tastes like sweet tea.

If we connect the dots, we seem to have a dead (or weak) SCOBY. Did this come from the same container as the pH Minus one? If so, there may have been enough residual sulfur to inhibit production of a new colony.
Best bet now may be to dump it, go buy a couple bottles of unflavored, unpasteurized kt from your local store and use those as your starter tea.
You shouldn't need to add anything to drop the pH that way.
It took me many failed batches to finally get mine going right, so don't get discouraged.

There is no unflavored kombucha in my area. Even traveled thirty miles and I couldn't find any.

Yes, it came from the same container as the pH minus.

Kpotta said:

Yes, it came from the same container as the pH minus.

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That's what I was afraid of.
Whereabouts are you located? There may be someone nearby who could give/sell/trade you a SCOBY.

I'm from near Indianapolis. I have another scoby in another batch that's been brewing since Thursday (five days) and nothings growing on top. The temp is 75 degrees.

Lack of a pellicle is not definitive. How's the 2nd batch taste after the 5 days? And did you do anything to it when you started it?
Also, what kind of tea are you using? And where do you source your water?

Okay, first batch was developing a scoby but our little friend mold also developed so I threw everything, even the scoby, out. I'm 100% sure it was mold. It was hairy.

Second batch is 1/2 gallon. I added 1/2 cup sugar, 4 green tea bags were used in steeping for like six minutes, added two table spoons of distilled white vinegar. When everything cooled i added the scoby of course. It's day six and I think a scoby is forming. I want to taste it and test the ph but I don't want to disturb the growth of scoby. The original scoby was so tiny I'd rather grow a nice big one and have to throw out the first batch. No mold on this one though that I can see.

Oh, water quality. It easily could be an issue because I used water out of the tap. I declorinated it before introducing the scoby however. I haven't tested the tap water pH in a while but it used to be pretty alkaline which leads me to believe I should have either used more vinegar or simply purchased bottled spring water. I found a thread on here which says to use one table spoon vinegar per litre of tea but that however can't be accurate for everyone unless this is the rule of thumb for (7) neutral pH because everyone's water is different and varies in pH.

If your municipal water utility has switched to chloramine instead of ionic chlorine, you need to chemically dechlorinate it. Boiling no longer does the trick.

That's exactly what I did.

Sorry should have said that dechlorinator is exactly how I declorinated. I'm aware boiling or letting it sit out doesn't work.

Update! Second batch seems to be done! I did it! I tasted it and tested the pH and there's even a new scoby. I don't know why it was different from the first batch but just glad it worked!

Excellent!

So, I had to go out of town for a few days and wasn't able to let the bottles complete the second ferment/carbonating process and put them in the fridge. Will they resume once I take them out?

If there's a viable culture, a hospitable environment and something to eat, they will pretty much always resume fermentation.
Refrigeration won't kill most microbes, so you should be good.

Thank you my next batch it brewing while I'm away. I can wait to see if there is new growth when I get back. This is fun!

Okay, I'm getting very discouraged. My new batch is covered in mold. This is the second time. Is there any way to prevent this? I just think it's ridiculous to keep having to buy a new scoby every week because that's quite expensive and wasteful.

The two things you haven't mentioned and no one's asked: how are you sanitizing your fermenter and what do you cover them with while you're brewing?
My first few batches all got mold. I had to do my best (well, ok, it was mostly swmbo) to rid my apartment of mold. Current batch is a continuous ferment started on 5 May and no mold.
You may have to clean more than your fermenter to avoid mold.

I used boiling water and vinegar to clean it. I covered it with a cloth napkin.

Ah ha! Well, maybe, anyway. Sanitization regimen seems good. You might want to switch to a paper coffee filter with a rubber band to secure it. Use a new filter every brew.
I was using a clean tea towel soaked in StarSan and was still getting mold. When we de-moldified the apartment, I switched to a loose fitting glass lid. We still get some mold in the bathroom, but so far, none in the kombucha.

Alright, thank you!

The room I'm using is next to the part of our house we call the dungeon which is extremely dark and dank and some of that might be escaping into the next room where I keep the brew because the room has no windows and is rarely used.

Kpotta said:

Thank you my next batch it brewing while I'm away. I can wait to see if there is new growth when I get back. This is fun!

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I have not looked at this thread for a while but it sounds like your getting addicted to brewing now haha. Sounds like you have had some ups and downs too. Its all trial and error when your a newbie to kombucha brewing, I know I was the same doing things wrong and I sometimes do now. It could possibly be the room where your keeping the tea to brew. You've not thrown this second batch away have you?

Yes, I threw it away because it was covered in mold and I thought you had to. If you're referring to the batch that didn't grow mold I still have that and might try to grow a scoby with it.

The thing is I have a Jun scoby which is basically the same as booch except uses honey which is far more expensive than sugar. I don't want my first attempt at that to grow hairs either because it's so expensive, this is of course if I find out if I can help it. Thanks for your replies so much. And yes, I've been bitten by the fermentation bug indeed!

Kpotta said:

The room I'm using is next to the part of our house we call the dungeon which is extremely dark and dank and some of that might be escaping into the next room where I keep the brew because the room has no windows and is rarely used.

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Umm, I think we may have finally solved the riddle.
Try moving your fermenter to the driest part of the house.
And put a fresh filter in your A/C unit if you have one.
Or put it in a box and lay a bunch of silica gel packets around it.

Okay, thank you. I will start keeping it upstairs where its dry. I like the in a box idea too!