Bacteria Question

[SkyHigh]

Well to start off I am a brand new kombucha brewer and all I have now is the 1.5 gallon ported glass jar w/spigot I got today from Old Time Pottery for $20. I am going to be growing my own SCOBY as I just like to do things myself. I am in Nashville, TN so I am certain that I will have a variety of choices of KT to choose from to get started. I have read/watched a ton of resources and I understand not to use any KT with fruit juice or other additives. Stick with Raw and/or organic and even better if they have residue or floaties. I think I have researched Kombucha extensively but below is a question/idea I have yet to have answered adequately.

If I understand correctly not every SCOBY or finished KT has every possible bacteria contained within itself. So my thought is to buy as many different raw/organic KT's as I can find to get my mother SCOBY going. Not that this ensures every possible bacteria but in my thinking would increase the odds to have a more complete SCOBY than using just one KT or even just buying one healthy SCOBY online.

I will have a continuous brew setup so also curious about other practical ways to introduce new bacteria as one progresses with their Kombucha brewing.

 

[kyt]

Sure you could try that, and it's not a bad idea.
However, in the end, you'll be creating competition for the food source, and certain strains will win out over others.
What you'd have to do, is have several separate batches or cultures that you maintain for purity, then mix them together when you're brewing the batch you want to drink.
Some breweries mix ale and lager strains together in the fermentor, but they are cultured and stored separately in the lab.
You may find it not economical to maintain 10 strains of yeast and bacteria. If you identified a couple yeasts that work well together, and a few bacteria that all together produce a product with the dry/sweetness, esters, acid type/amounts, etc. that you like, then you'd only have to maintain 5 cultures instead of 10. Why maintain a strain of Brett or Lacto to mix in, just for it to die and do nothing?
If your environment causes lots of microbes to die off, you could produce undesirable or unpalatable flavors/aromas. If there's not enough room and food for all organisms, they're going to either shutdown and do nothing, or they're going to die.

If you don't want to mix your strains in the fermentor, you could ferment separately, and mix the finished KT before refrigeration.