Kombucha beer

[chumpsteak]

Experienced home brewer, but new to kombucha. I'd like to experiment with souring a beer with kombucha and wondered if anyone has tried adding some kombucha scoby to beer? My current plan is to make about a 5% abv blonde ale and pitch US05 Brewers yeast and some Kombucha scoby at the same time. The idea being that the Brewers yeast will ferment out the beer creating 5% alcohol within a week and then the scoby will add the kombucha character within another week or two. Then hopefully it will be a light blonde ale with sourness and vinegar flavor from the kombachu. I will then add fruit, juice, or just keg depending on taste.

Does anyone have any experience with something like this?

 

[racin_ny]

Did you ever try this? I have one going where I made Kombucha first. I then put that in a fermentor minus Scoby but with a bunch of yeast off the bottom. I then mixed in a hopped mini mash and pitched beer yeast.

 

[snagy2]

I’m in the same boat as you for sure. There’s a good talk on the fermentation nation podcast #15 that relates directly to your question. The brewers on that episode have been doing that kind of souring with great results. Worth the listen

 

[Omahawk]

Would you want to blend some Kombucha with the fermented beer for the Scoby fermentation? I know beer ph is something like 4.0 while KT is supposed to be around 3.

 

[snagy2]

Worth trying a small amount for sure, sour beer gets that low regularly.

 

[racin_ny]

I’m in the same boat as you for sure. There’s a good talk on the fermentation nation podcast #15 that relates directly to your question. The brewers on that episode have been doing that kind of souring with great results. Worth the listen

Thanks snagy2 Let's keep in touch

 

[TheBaconater]

I just did some experimenting yesterday with a kombucha beer, it is fermenting now. Anyone have any feedback regarding their own attempts?

 

[racin_ny]

I did a small batch with 1/2 gallon finished Kombucha and 1/2 gallon of mosaic hopped amber wort. Then I fermented with WPL 862 Cry Havoc. It is a bit more sour than I care for but it definitely shows promise. I might try 1/4 to 3/4 on my next batch.

 

[TheBaconater]

I did a small batch with 1/2 gallon finished Kombucha and 1/2 gallon of mosaic hopped amber wort. Then I fermented with WPL 862 Cry Havoc. It is a bit more sour than I care for but it definitely shows promise. I might try 1/4 to 3/4 on my next batch.

So did you "pasteurize" the kombucha at all by boiling it before adding it to the wort, or did you just toss it in? Reading your previous post I'm guessing no since you pulled yeast from the bottom of the Kombucha fermentation. Do you think there was any advantage to adding from the kombucha along with the Cry Havoc?

 

[racin_ny]

Hello,
No I didn't pasteurize the Kombucha. I just added them together. The reason I added the Cry Havoc was to be sure I had a decent fermenation occur.