What makes good booch?

[grrickar]

On the surface it looks like good tea, good sugar, healthy SCOBY, time = good booch.

It must not be quite so simple. I have bought commercial booch, and one brand (sorry I don't recall which) I was absolutely disgusted by - it was very vinegary.

I recently got brave enough and tried 'Bucha' brand, I think the flavor was raspberry pomegranate or something - and I found the flavor quite interesting and pleasing.

So what makes booch vinegary, and how do to prevent/correct that in fermentation?

I am an avid tea drinker, and I have at least 50 types of tea I drink routinely. I moved on from tea bags long ago, but I will still drink Lipton or Constant Comment every now and again. I usually do loose teas these days, and I can't help but think some booch would be good from some of them.

 

[8rnw8]

All kombucha will become vinegary with time, a function of the yeast and bacteria eating the sugar a producing acid.

You have to taste it until it is the level of sweet/tart that you want.

 

[grrickar]

All kombucha will become vinegary with time, a function of the yeast and bacteria eating the sugar a producing acid.

You have to taste it until it is the level of sweet/tart that you want.

Could it be the brand I tried did not 'stabilize' it, so it sat and became vinegary?

 

[8rnw8]

Kombucha is a living thing. The only way to make it not become more and more sour is to kill it. Otherwise you can put it in the fridge to slow it down when it is the right level of sour for you.

 

[Spaceman]

Once the yeast and bacteria run out of food, the process will slow and stop as the microbes become dormant. The bacteria are the component that produces the acid, causing the vinegar taste. These same bacteria are also aerobic, so if they do not have access to fresh air, they will go into dormancy. Reducing the amount of ethanol they have available to eat (produced by the yeast) can also inhibit their production of acid.

So to answer your question - yes, you can control the vinegar taste of the booch by how you brew your tea and how much nutrients are available for the scoby to eat. Kombucha is all about finding that perfect balance between the yeast and bacteria so they are both healthy.

I'm not sure what you mean by "stabilizing" the kombucha though.

 

[grrickar]

I wasn't sure if the manufacturers somehow got the booch to a certain stage, then stop the fermentation somehow - sort of like backsweetening mead using Kmeta and Sorbate.

 

[8rnw8]

Not really. Those are used to kill the yeast, and largely the point of kombucha is the probiotic qualities, although I guess if you were just making it for taste, you could kill the yeast and bacteria so you would just have a regular tangy carbonated drink?

 

[8rnw8]

Like I said, refrigeration will drastically slow fermentation. Stick it in the fridge when it's where you want it.

 

[ericbw]

Some kombucha producers do pasteurize the product. There was a move to make them all do it a while back. I think it varies by state, though.

But if you taste the tea along the way, when it is how you like it, you can move it to the fridge or put it in a new container and refrigerate that.

You can also backsweeten with fresh tea and sugar to get it how you like it, then fridge to keep it from fermenting sour again. But the key is that booch is mean to be drunk quickly before it sours. I found 2 weeks fermenting and drink it over the course of a week, otherwise it gets too sour.