How to conserve Kombucha tea for long periods of time?

[Nadja]

Hi all! I'm from Argentina I'm new in this community and I would like to read from your experience how to conserve Kombucha tea for a long period of time.

My doubt is: Does it get stronger when the time passes by? How long I can left it in a bottle?

read your suggestions!
Thanks so much.

 

[NeoBrew]

Temperature is a big factor. Are you able to keep it refrigerated? If so it will last months. If you cannot refrigerate it how do you intend to store it?

It will keep fermenting to some extent. It depends on on the sugar levels available and the quality of the culture of bacteria. In general, it will continue to get stronger with time, but it is going to be less and less change in terms of fermentation. That first week is going to be fast fermentation, the second week a lot will happen as well. Then after that it will have minimal change in terms of fermentation. I would imagine it is somewhat logarithmic, but I've never studied it to know. After a month or so I think you will start to see some staling properties show up. From there on it's not fermentation as much as it is just oxidation and other staling of the kombucha.

 

[Nadja]

Temperature is a big factor. Are you able to keep it refrigerated? If so it will last months. If you cannot refrigerate it how do you intend to store it?

It will keep fermenting to some extent. It depends on on the sugar levels available and the quality of the culture of bacteria. In general, it will continue to get stronger with time, but it is going to be less and less change in terms of fermentation. That first week is going to be fast fermentation, the second week a lot will happen as well. Then after that it will have minimal change in terms of fermentation. I would imagine it is somewhat logarithmic, but I've never studied it to know. After a month or so I think you will start to see some staling properties show up. From there on it's not fermentation as much as it is just oxidation and other staling of the kombucha.

Thanks so much for your explanation.
Have you ever tried to age kombucha tea in order to see how long it last maintaining the properties of taste and general properties?

 

[Calder]

Fridge temps should be low enough to pretty much halt the bacteria activity and keep the brew stable. I don't know for how long, but it will be many months.

At room temperature, the bacteria will continue to convert all sugars to lactic acid within weeks.

 

[shelly_belly]

I make basic kombucha from black tea. I then blend it with various sweetened flavored teas and bottle in beer bottles for a secondary fermentation. I like kombucha carbonated to similar levels as beer. I have had many bottles age over 1 year and they are as good as when they were only several weeks old. They don't change much at all in 1 years time. Mine are stored at room temperature.

 

[aprichman]

You could probably pasteurize bottles in a water bath - not sure how that would effect the flavor profile though

 

[NeoBrew]

Thanks so much for your explanation.
Have you ever tried to age kombucha tea in order to see how long it last maintaining the properties of taste and general properties?

I've never tried to age it. Mine was always gone within two weeks.

 

[Nadja]

Thanks all for the comments.