Growing a Mother

[Flyinsky]

Hello All,

Its getting costly buying bottles of Kombucha from the store for the kids. I decided to make some myself. Due to Covid i thought it safer to grow my own mother from a bottle of unflavoured kombucha. I am 9 days in and wondering about the health of the batch and the mother. Cant see anything yet. Is it too early? Does the apperence of the batch look normal? Thank you to all that reply.

 

[pvpeacock]

That does not look normal to me. Is it actively bubbling as it appears to be doing in photo 1? If so, that is not a good sign. Normally, a thin white film will form over the top of the liquid and thicken over time until there is a good solid layer aka a SCOBY.

What exactly did you do to try and make your first kombucha batch? How much bottled kombucha did you use? While the bottled kombucha you used was unflavored, was it raw or pasteurized? You need to use raw kombucha. How much sweet tea did you make and how much and what type of sugar did you use?

You can always buy starter tea and a SCOBY on line to start rather than use bottled kombucha. It is probably a safer and more reliable way of making your first batch. See for example: https://www.amazon.com/Fermentaholi...ocphy=9031023&hvtargid=pla-314031789242&psc=1

 

[Flyinsky]

Hello. I used this recipie. Gt natural Kombucha
Making a SCOBY Ingredients:

• 7 cups (1.6 L) clean water
• ½ cup (100 g) white sugar
• 4 bags black tea (or 1 Tbsp loose tea)
• 1 cup (235 mL) unpasteurized, unflavored store bought kombucha
• A large glass or ceramic container (two jars holding at least ½ gallon (1.9 L) each, or one jug holding at least 1 gallon (3.7 L)). Alternatively, use a glass jug with a built in spigot to make pouring the kombucha out easier!
• Tightly woven cloth (coffee filters, paper towels, napkins, cheese cloth)
• Rubberbands

 

[Flyinsky]

Here is the bottle.

 

[NGD]

Not sure I can be of much help but I have successfully used that recipe and half a bottle of GTs original to start making SCOBYS. It wasnt the synergy line but I don’t think it should make a difference.
Few questions that come to mind are:

1. Where did you source your tap water from?

2. What is the ambient temperature where the kombucha is located?

3.What was the temp of the tea when adding the GT’s?

 

[pvpeacock]

All good questions by NGD.
1. you need to make sure you are not using tap water with chlorine of chloramine.
2. ideal fermentation temperature is around 75 degrees F, but anything from the mid- to high-60's to high 70's will work.
3. If the sweat tea was too hot when you added it to the kombucha is could have killed the yeast and bacteria in the kombucha