Making Kombucha

February 18, 2012 at 9:28 AM (Beverages, Ferments, How To, Recipes)
Tags: alternative medicine, Health, Kombucha, SCOBY, Tea

Making Kombucha Tea

5 black tea bags

1 gallon purified water

your homemade Kombucha Scoby

1 cup sugar

2 gallon sized glass jars

Boil water and steep tea for 30 minutes. Stir in sugar. Let tea cool for 30 minutes. Pour tea into a clean glass jar. Now since you already made your own mushroom, you should have a large glass jar of tea with a strange-looking organism floating in it sitting on your kitchen counter. Remove mushroom from this jar, and place into the new jar of tea, along with a 1 cup of the earlier, already fermented batch of tea. It will float on the top and happily eat the sugar in this fresh tea. Leave out to culture for 7 days. Now drink.

Told you this was going to be easy!

SCOBY: Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast

I stop at this step, because I love the Kombucha just like this. Many people prefer it carbonated or flavored however. In order to carbonate, pour the kombucha into individual bottles with tight lids (glass or plastic is best) and leave on the counter overnight. In the morning move bottles to the fridge. Careful when opening, they get fizzy really fast.

To add flavor mix the Kombucha with juice to flavor it. 1/2 to 1 cup of 100% juice per gallon is plenty. I have tried many flavors and cherry juice is my favorite. We usually only make Kombucha Soda in the summer time.

Scoby floating

Your mushroom will get thicker and thicker with each batch. In a few batches you will be able to separate them into 2 separate mushrooms. You should keep the new “baby” because it contains less yeast, and more bacteria, which is what you want for optimal health. As the Scoby’s get thicker and older, they are composed mostly of yeast, so having a culture that regenerates itself is totally cool!

There is a lot of debate about how much sugar is left in a finished batch of Kombucha after the yeasts and bacteria metabolize it for 7 days. The real answer is that it varies from batch to batch and from household to household. The sugar gets used and converted by the bacteria and yeast during the brewing process. So the final Kombucha tea has a lot less sugar than what you put into it. Many people with diabetes report having no problems drinking it; while others may need to make some adjustments to compensate. My advice would be to drink some after 7 days, if it spikes your blood sugar, try a longer ferment. Just keep tasting and testing your blood until you reach the proper length of time for your body. Keep in mind that after 7 days Kombucha contains .5 to 1% alcohol, which will increase the longer it brews, making it more sour. I have heard of many people who quit their nightly beer habit by replacing it with Kombucha.

Have fun experimenting! And don’t forget to name your Scoby! Questions? Please ask, I am happy to help!

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