Kombucha not souring (much)

Hello Booch Brewers!

I've been making kombucha in 1 gallon jars for about 2 years, using daughters from my original SCOBY with great success. I usually let the tea ferment for three to four weeks as like my kombucha to be SOUR.

Usually by the time it gets to the level of sour I like, I've "sampled" it to the point where I only have enough left to use as my next starter liquid so I'm moving to bigger batches and trying to do a large continuous brew.

I mixed 3 gallons of the sweet tea and a gallon of my finished kombucha with SCOBY in a new 6 gallon bottling bucket with spigot. My SCOBY quickly grew to cover the top of the liquid. It's been going since Xmas day and it looks and smells as usual, which I assume is healthy. It stays at around 70-75 degrees, however it is not sour.

Having sampled along the way I can tell that most if not all of the sugar has been consumed. I get a light tea flavor, but it's not sweet at all. It is a little tart, but not the teeth etching sour I've had with past brews using this same SCOBY and same tea recipe. It tastes like a weak tea lemonade mix. It's been at a consistent (low) level of tartness for almost two weeks now, so I assume it has to be done. It's certainly drinkable, but not what I'm looking for.

Has anyone experienced something like this before? Could some of my organisms have died or quit?

I'm thinking of dumping SCOBY and starting over, but it looks good and I've been maintaining it for so long I hate to toss it prematurely.

My recipe is 8 bags of green tea and 1 cup sugar per gallon of filtered water.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!!!

I find green tea less sour/harsh. I like it less sour. Is that your usual recipe?

i noticed that in the colder winter months, it takes more time to get very sour.

during the summer months, when temps are around 78-80F, two weeks would get me where i like it.

these days, temps around 70F, it almost takes 4 weeks, and i've started to use more starter liquid to get a headstart

J.

Thank you for the quick responses!

I do usually use green tea, but this was a new brand. I'll try another batch with the same scoby and new tea...and be patient.

I'll update the post with the outcome.

Thanks again!

Maybe the larger batch needs different settings? Because there is more water, it may take more yeast or heat or something. A guide I have seen says that tea that is too sweet is that way because the yeast (Scoby) is semi-dormant. It is just not eating the sugar as fast. A guess only. I am just learning.

I'm on my first batch but knowing the SCOBY likes warmer temperatures and knowing my house isn't above 70 at any time I'm going to say it will just take more time fermenting in the 60s to get the sourness you're looking for.

Have you taken any pH readings? I just used a test strip and mine is between 3.6 and 3.2. The pelicle on top is starting to show signs of falling down so I'm going to let it ride out and see how tart it becomes over the next days until it's where I want it.

Quick update - I think it was a combination of time, and using only green tea. After another week it was more sour. I pulled off a gallon for the fridge and put in three gallons of sweetened black tea on the two remaining gallons of sour booch. The new batch took off immediately, foaming and bubbling more than batches I've seen in a while. That full 5 gallon batch is almost done now two weeks later.

My last 5 or more 1 gallon batches were only green tea. Then I used that SCOBY in my large batch using only green tea. My guess is after that many cycles some of the critters that prefer black tea may have gone dormant. When I refreshed with the black tea they flourished.

I still prefer the taste of booch using green tea, so I'll just do a black tea booch every three or four batches to make sure my SCOBY gets all the nutrients it needs and stays active.

I'll update the post if anything noteworthy occurs. Please ask if you have questions about my process or my large batch bootch.

Thanks!

FYI... i use a 50/50 mix of black and green.


J.

Having same issue, booch not getting sour. I recently started two batches: 1) a one gallon batch that is now 10 days old and is already souring nicely to the point I might bottle today. The second batch is 2 gallons, using the same tea mixture, but with two new SCOBY's purchased on Amazon, is 14 days old and still kind of sweet. I'm wondering if the SCOBY's are inactive. There is a nice new SCOBY forming on top, however. In the case of the OP Tiedye, he says his large batch was still not souring at 24 days but after another week it did sour - 31 days? Wow. That gives me hope for my batch but it seems a really long ferment!

Should I just wait 1 or 2 more weeks to see if the batch sours (to 21 or 28 days) or is there something I should do to "revive" the possibly dormant SCOBY? Add some sour booch from batch #1 to this batch? Would that kickstart things?

My approach would be to give it more time. It certainly won't hurt it, and I'd think a new SCOBY might take a little longer to get into it's groove.

Use a heat mat. it will make it get vinegary really quick though if you are not careful. I use daughter scobys and about 1-2 cups of starter per gallon. I then put the jar in my cooler with a heat wrap for about a day, then switch it off and wait about 2-4 more for it to balance out. I still get overly vinegary batches sometimes

grrickar said:

Use a heat mat. it will make it get vinegary really quick though if you are not careful. I use daughter scobys and about 1-2 cups of starter per gallon. I then put the jar in my cooler with a heat wrap for about a day, then switch it off and wait about 2-4 more for it to balance out. I still get overly vinegary batches sometimes

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About going vinegary quickly, I take that to mean "test your booch regularly so you can stop the brewing before it goes bad". Or are you saying it is bad if a booch matures too fast? I just starting using heat mats and a thermostat set at 79F and was surprised that my 1 gallon batch seemed to mature in only 10 days. Wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing?

HighSnows said:

About going vinegary quickly, I take that to mean "test your booch regularly so you can stop the brewing before it goes bad". Or are you saying it is bad if a booch matures too fast? I just starting using heat mats and a thermostat set at 79F and was surprised that my 1 gallon batch seemed to mature in only 10 days. Wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing?

Click to expand...

I have only been brewing booch a few months, but I quickly found that heat would make the booch carbonate faster, but it seemed to sour quicker. Not a bad thing if you like it more sour/acidic. I do a batch about once a week, and the first couple of bottles will have some sweetness, but after 4 days or so the last few bottles start to get very acidic. Nothing wrong with that if you can stand to drink it. Sort of like weak apple cider vinegar.

I bottled yesterday, and put the bottles in a cooler with a heat wrap and there are very tiny translucent scobies already in each bottle. Without heat that would take about 7-10 days in my 65 degree unfinished basement.

If you get the timing right, I suppose you could use heat for force ferment/carbing, then take the temp down to retain some sweetness as desired