Making Kombucha with Keely
I decided to try making Kombucha at my girlfriend Keely’s suggestion. Kombucha is any of a variety of fermented, fizzy sweetened black or green tea that are commonly intended as functional beverages for their supposed health benefits. Kombucha is produced by fermenting tea using a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast otherwise known as a the acronym SCOBY. Contributing microbial populations in SCOBY cultures differ, but the yeast component generally includes Saccharomyces, a probiotic fungus, and other species. The bacterial element almost always includes Gluconacetobacter xylinus , as this oxidizes yeast-produced alcohols to acetic and other acids. We named our first SCOBY Scoby-doo in a play on the famous name, Scooby-doo, the talking great Dane in Mystery, inc. To start, we purchased a SCOBY and a couple cheese cloths from Amazon. While we waited for this colony and cheesecloth to arrive via the post, we stopped by the store and picked up two 1-gallon jars, opting for the kind with the faucet built in for ease of draining. I liked the turquoise one as it was like that of the Mystery Machine. We had plenty of tea and raw cane sugar already, so once the SCOBY and cheesecloth arrived we had everything we needed to begin the two-week process.
We started by boiling a dozen black tea bags on the stove. We chose to use distilled water, but tap water supposedly works just as well, and since you boil it, all bad bacteria should be killed off regardless of what water you use. Once it was well steeped, we added a cup of raw cane sugar. After we made sure the sugar had dissolved into the tea, we took the pot off the heat, fished out the tea bags, and allowed the tea to cool to room temperature. This took around an hour. Once the tea was cool, we opened our packaged SCOBY and placed it in the bottom of the one gallon jar, followed by the sugar tea we just brewed.
Placing the cheesecloth on the lip of the jar, we secured it with a rubber-band. It’s important to make sure nothing (flies, pets, etc.) can get into the jar, but also important that the pressure created during the process has a way of escape. Thus the cheesecloth rather that the secure metal/plastic lid. Tucking this mixture away in a dark cupboard, we allowed it to ferment for a week. By the week’s end, the SCOBY had feasted on the sugar in the tea and grown two fold. Where it started as a same circumference as a can of soda, it now stretched all the way to the walls of the glass jar.
After a week of fermenting, we were ready for stage two. We used a juicer to make a about a half gallon of kiwi and orange juice. (You can use pure fruit juice from the store if you wish). Using a dozen mason jars we added the kiwi and orange juice to the jars, and filled them about a third of the way. We then used the built in faucet to fill the jars an addition 50% with the fermented tea. As we had a batch of strawberries, we added a whole strawberry to each of the jars, as well. We screwed the lids on, making sure not to seal them completely, as again the fermenting process produces gases that could cause the jars to crack or even explode if there is no escape for the gases. We let the jars sit for another week before trying one. After chilling a jar in the fridge and then straining it, we tried it. It has a very vinegary taste to it, with a light, fruity flavor.
We strained the remaining jars and added them all together in a large jar, which we refrigerate to prevent further fermenting, as this could lead to a higher alcohol level. For fun, we had everyone at a party take a shot of the stuff and had no complaints other than the unique, abrasive flavor. Below is the final product. It’s quite red as the strawberries we striped of their color.
It is also interesting to note that each mason jar seemed to form a new mini SCOBY and we decided to add all these to a second 1-gallon jar with more sugar and tea to see it it works out. You can see a pile of the new SCOBYs two images above on the right side. The original SCOBY, Scoby-Doo, will produce new layers that are actually new SCOBYs, which is why we bought the second 1-gallon jar to begin with. The second SCOBY is to be called… I can’t remember, actually. It was something related to Lord of the Rings, I believe. Another pun, no doubt.
