Kombucha 101

Written By Abigail Kangethe

Do you love the taste and benefits of kombucha but tired of paying $6 a bottle for it? Or maybe you want more than just the basic flavors and want to experiment with different ingredients. Making kombucha can be made at home and can be done for literally cents per bottle, its also a delicious way to add gut boosting probiotics into your daily diet.

 

Follow along with kombucha 101, 102, and 103 to learn and master this simple process!

 

What you will need:

  1. 5L glass container for brewing

  2. Rubber bands and a piece of cheese cloth

  3. 10 black tea bags or 8 TBL loose leaf black tea

  4. 1 cup white or raw sugar

  5. A SCOBY, this can be purchased on line or you can get one from anyone you know who is currently making kombucha. (This can also be made from scratch See All About SCOBY blog)

  6. A cup of raw kombucha

Kombucha step one:

  1. In a large glass container (around 3-5L) place 10 black plain tea bags and fill 1/3 way with boiling hot water. If using loose leaf tea use another class jar, let steep, then strain out tea leaves. Let steep 15 min. Add one cup white or raw sugar. Stir until combined then fill until to 3/4 the way with room temp filtered water.

Start with a large glass jar as well as an axillary glass jar to steep tea in if using loose leaf tea

Let tea steep fully, then add sugar while tea is still warm



2. Add one cup raw kombucha to mixture when it is room temperature, it is very important that this is not flavored or has any friut in it just the raw kombucha. Place a SCOBY gently in the kombucha batch when the tea mixture is room temperature. The scoby will mostly likely sink to the bottom or middle of jar but should float up over the next week while the tea ferments.

3. Cover with a cheese cloth and tie with a rubber band making sure to seal all openings tightly and place in a room temp area out of direct sunlight to ferment for 2-4 wks. The temperature of your kitchen will affect the time it takes for the kombucha to ferment. If you like a more acidic or bitter kombucha than leave it to ferment longer, where as a short fermentation time will lead to a sweeter kombucha batch.

Here the SCOBY is added to fully steeped tea mixed with filtered water and sugar and tied off with a cloth to allow air to permeate the tea.

Continue to Kombucha Blog 102 for second half of recipe






Notes on substituting ingredients:

While I am usually a fan of exchanging ingredients in recipes based on availability - kombucha is a little tricky and requires you to use only plain black tea - not substitute with green or earl gray or anything herbal or flavored, and also requires plain sugar, white or in the raw, but wont work right if you substitute with brown sugar, honey, stevia or any other sugar replacement because the SCOBY needs pure glucose to work in the fermentation process.

But don’t worry in the the next step you can experiment and get creative with your kombucha’s flavor!

Persimon Kombucha

Abigail Kangethe