are all SCOBY's created equal?

[tadow]

Booklyn Kombucha has some mighty expensive SCOBY's. Is there any reason for this besides high end marketing?

http://www.kombuchabrooklyn.com/cultures.html

thanks
T

 

[theDREWery]

Every fermenting culture you use will slowly drift towards local cultures, unless your fermentation occurs in lab quality sterility. This isn't really a bad thing, and shouldn't effect the health benefits or flavor of your kombucha.

I don't see the point in paying $30 for a culture when you should be able to find commercial, unpasteurized kombucha for a couple dollars.

Get a bottle of GT's, double its volume with sweet tea, repeat when it tastes sour. Keep doing this till you hit the volume you want.

 

[hunter_le five]

Marketing.

Agree with drewery. Buy a bottle of unflavored kombucha and grow your own SCOBY.

 

[tadow]

Every fermenting culture you use will slowly drift towards local cultures, unless your fermentation occurs in lab quality sterility.

well I asked the company linked above and they said that they grow their SCOBYs in a "lab." Which is probably just a back office or basement. Lets assume its actually grown in a lab. Does that mean anything?

Also where would be a good place to get a Jun SCOBY (eats honey instead of sugar and brews faster)?

 

[hunter_le five]

Not really.

 

[dye4me]

Ive been doing a lot of reading about this lately and it seems no they are not all created equal http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8559192 this link shows that a bunch of scobys tested all had different components.

I asked kombucha Brooklyn for a lab analysis of their scoby, will be interesting to see what they say. On another note, I'm getting ready to build my own super scoby from scratch so i can put in the components I'm looking for into it from birth Im thinking a bit of brewers yeast, some sauerkraut water and some skins from wild berries should get things going.

 

[Thedillestpickle]

Ive been doing a lot of reading about this lately and it seems no they are not all created equal http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8559192 this link shows that a bunch of scobys tested all had different components.

I asked kombucha Brooklyn for a lab analysis of their scoby, will be interesting to see what they say. On another note, I'm getting ready to build my own super scoby from scratch so i can put in the components I'm looking for into it from birth Im thinking a bit of brewers yeast, some sauerkraut water and some skins from wild berries should get things going.

Interesting idea. Where did you get the idea to build a scoby from scratch? Is that something that is known to work?

 

[dye4me]

I read a thred on here yesterday about someone in Isreal could not get a scoby or tea and had some luck making Thier own scoby. Then last night I noticed a jar of sweet tea I left out at room temp for a week or so and it had strands growing in it similar to those that can connect a floating scoby to one in the bottom. So I started thinking it might be fun to grow my own beast, maybe find something to sour beers with to my liking in the process

 

[Thedillestpickle]

I read a thred on here yesterday about someone in Isreal could not get a scoby or tea and had some luck making Thier own scoby. Then last night I noticed a jar of sweet tea I left out at room temp for a week or so and it had strands growing in it similar to those that can connect a floating scoby to one in the bottom. So I started thinking it might be fun to grow my own beast, maybe find something to sour beers with to my liking in the process

A little note on that.

I experimented with growing a scoby once but using only open fermentation.

I made a regular batch of sweet tea and instead of adding kombucha tea + scoby I only added white vinegar to bring the pH down to around 3. I covered it with a cloth and let it sit for about three weeks and it began to grow what looked exactly like a typical kombucha scoby. I didn't make more tea from that, so I can't tell you how successful it was, and I didn't drink that tea either, but I thought it was interesting.

I've wondered if it was "spontaneous"; ie. was it only because I had also been brewing kombucha already that the culture got into the sweet tea. And would it have produced a desirable drink?

 

[dye4me]

This is what their lab analysis of their scoby is. I think it would be interesting to start with a culture like this that has a documented make up, just to see what kind of flavour profile it created, but I'm not gonna spend $25usd plus shipping to find out (thats like $100 up in Canada right now :-( )


Yeasts identified:
Zygosaccharomyces bisporus
Zygosaccharomyces kombuchaensis
Dekkera bruxellensis
Starmerella bacillaris


Bacteria identified:
Gluconacetobacter intermedius
Acetobacter tropicalis
Komagataeibacter xylinus

 

[tadow]

This is what their lab analysis of their scoby is. I think it would be interesting to start with a culture like this that has a documented make up, just to see what kind of flavour profile it created, but I'm not gonna spend $25usd plus shipping to find out (thats like $100 up in Canada right now :-( )


Yeasts identified:
Zygosaccharomyces bisporus
Zygosaccharomyces kombuchaensis
Dekkera bruxellensis
Starmerella bacillaris


Bacteria identified:
Gluconacetobacter intermedius
Acetobacter tropicalis
Komagataeibacter xylinus

how do we know that all scoby's dont already have a profile similar to this?