How To Make Kombucha

Kombucha

For those new to Kombucha brewing, a SCOBY is a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast which gobble up (ferment) the sugar, metabolising it into the slightly carbonated, tangy drink that’s rich with probiotics and beneficial acids.

You’ll have to experiment to see how long each step of the process will take based on the conditions in your home and your own tastebuds.

Ingredients to make 1 litre of Kombucha:

See below for more information regarding what type of sugar and tea to use.

Ingredients:

  1. Bring 1 litre water close to boiling point in a large pot and then switch off stove (especially important if using green tea as it becomes bitter if boiling water is used).
  2. Add 2 tea bags and allow to steep for 10 - 20 minutes. Remove the tea bags.
  3. Add 1/4 cup of sugar and stir well.
  4. Allow the tea to come to room temperature and pour into a 1 litre mason jar or crock.
  5. Place the SCOBY plus starter Kombucha tea into the jar. Do not put SCOBY into a hot tea – you will kill the bacteria and yeast. The mother mushroom may sit on the top of the liquid or float in the middle or sink to the bottom.
  6. Cover with a piece of piece of fabric and secure with a rubber band. It must breathe.
  7. Allow the Kombucha to ferment in a dark place for 7-14 days (or wrap some fabric around the jar to keep light out). The fermentation time will vary depending on your location, your SCOBY and how sweet or sour you want the Kombucha. Sample by moving the SCOBY aside and taking a little out with a clean plastic spoon or sipping through a straw. Leave up to twice as long for diabetes and weight loss. After this time, your tea may be slightly carbonated. You may drink the Kombucha tea then or to do a second fermentation with ginger or different fruits for flavour and more carbonation.
  8. A new baby mushroom will form on the top of the liquid which you can use to make a second jar of kombucha when making the next batch.
  9. Remember to reserve at least a cup of Kombucha out of each batch to get the next started.

Cultures for health offers this handy chart for proportions:

Quantity Chart

Note: One quart = +1 litre, Half Gallon = +2 litres, One Gallon = +4 litres

KOMBUCHA – CONTINUOUS BREWING METHOD

There are two ways to brew Kombucha:

  1. The batch method where Kombucha is brewed in batches and re-started with each batch by using the SCOBY “baby” and some of the liquid from the previous batch.

  2. The continuous brew method which involves removing only some of the liquid each time and replacing with the same amount of fresh brewed sweetened tea. This is a less messy method, helps it brew faster and takes up less room on the counter.

Traditionally, Kombucha is brewed using a continuous brewing system. Continuous-brew systems are easy to set up and have a number of benefits, including less overall work to produce more overall volume.

• A continuous-brew system is less maintenance as it can be cleaned periodically rather than with each new batch. Adding new sugared tea to an existing jar already containing the starter tea and SCOBY is far easier than starting with a new container.

• A continuous-brew system allows for the greatest chance of a successful batch. Maintaining the ecosystem created during the fermentation process provides the best defence against the development of mould and invasion by transient yeasts and bacteria.

• A continuous-brew system provides the healthiest environment for the SCOBY. Rather than disturbing the ecological environment through moving to new containers and regular cleaning cycles, the continuous brew allows the yeast and bacteria to develop relatively undisturbed with a consistent supply of new food.

• A continuous-brew system provides a more consistent supply of Kombucha for your family. A specific amount can be harvested every few days, once a week, etc.

• A continuous-brew system allows for a balance between the benefits of short and long fermentation periods. Shorter fermentation periods will generally yield a more sweet and pleasant tasting Kombucha. Longer fermentation periods yield Kombucha with a much stronger vinegar-like taste but also a wider array of beneficial bacteria and enzymes. A continuous brew system allows you to reap the benefits of both.

Some helpful notes from Cultures for Health:

• Timing Harvesting and Feeding. If desired, harvesting and feeding can be done every 3 to 14 days. We suggest weekly as that is the method used by most people. If you wish to draw off Kombucha to drink daily but only feed the mixture weekly, be aware that Kombucha drawn off at the beginning of the week is likely to have a higher sugar content than Kombucha drawn off later in the week (further away from when sugared tea was last added).

• Controlling Sugar Content. It is a bit more challenging to control the sugar content of the Kombucha when using a continuous-brew system. If low sugar content is an important factor for you, be sure to draw off all the Kombucha you will require first before adding the fresh sugared tea. We also recommend allowing the new sugared tea an adequate fermentation period prior to the next draw.

• Ongoing Cleaning of the Brewing Vessel and Spigot. We recommend only cleaning the vessel and spigot when warranted; for example, if the spigot becomes clogged with yeast particles or if too much yeast debris builds up in the bottom of the container. To clean the system, remove the Kombucha and SCOBY and set aside in a safe container. Clean the system thoroughly using vinegar if possible. (Soap can be used but the container must be rinsed very thoroughly several times as soap residue will be detrimental.) Once the system is clean, the Kombucha and thinned down SCOBY can be added back to the vessel, sugared tea can be added, and the process can resume.

• Separating Your SCOBY. One side effect of the continuous brewing system is the development of very large SCOBYs as the SCOBY will generally cover the entire surface area of the liquid. The primary issue with large SCOBYs is that after some time they grow very thick and take up valuable space in the container. While a giant SCOBY can be a fun thing to show off you may want to reduce its size to allow more efficient fermenting. You can usually peel them apart as layers with your (clean) hands. Otherwise cut with clean scissors or a knife. It doesn’t matter if they tear. (A small new batch of tea can be made from a 10% piece). Rinse off the mother under cool running water to get rid of any jelly-like tails or brown bits. Cut out any (dead) dark brown spots.

The Tools

Brewing container – for making larger quantities of kombucha we recommend the Durand kombucha crock. For smaller quantities, or if just starting out with kombucha making, we recommend a large glass jar, or few smaller glass jars if you do not have a big one. It is best to stick with glass jars that have been made for food purposes as some glass could contain lead. We would not recommend ceramic containers as most are now made in China and it may be impossible to verify that the glaze is lead free. We also would not recommend plastic grade food containers with something as acidic as Kombucha. Even some of the glass drink dispensers with taps may not be suitable – check with the manufacturers/agents that the glass in these does not contain lead as they are not made for brewing kombucha (the taps on these dispensers are not very good quality and could clog up easily due to their design)

Strainer – if you use loose tea instead of tea bags you will need to strain tea before putting it into brewing jar. You may also wish to strain your kombucha liquid if it has too many brown yeast strings floating in it in order to balance the yeast for the next brew. It is best to use a plastic strainer.

We find it useful to use a stainless steel tea ball for making our tea as we prefer to use tea leaves rather than tea bags.

Water – Kombucha cultures best when you use water that is as free from contaminants as possible. A high mineral content is not important for kombucha, and it may be harmful to the scoby. Use filtered water to remove as many additives, chemicals and contaminants as possible. If filtering is not possible, at the very least, aerating or boiling the water for 20 minutes may remove the chlorine. Letting the water stand for 24 hours will also allow the chlorine to evaporate.

SCOBY – the texture of the mother culture SCOBY depends on the symbiotic coexistence between bacteria and yeast. Sometimes the yeast can take over and produce dark coloured bumpy mushroom with brown spots. The yeast and spots are not mould, they just an out of balance culture with overgrown yeast. If there are too many stringy brown bits floating in kombucha, strain the liquid which you bottle to drink and which you use as a starter for the next batch. Also wash the SCOBY under filtered water to remove the yeast strings hanging off it. If there are brown spots in the SCOBY you can cut them out with a knife to remove them. This will clean your starter mushroom and liquid from too much yeast and your next brew should be back in balance with bacteria. The colour of SCOBY will be darker if you use black tea rather than green or white, as black tea has more tannins.

Sugar – sugar feeds the culture, not you, and is converted to other things during fermentation, e.g. glucuronic acid. Reducing the amount of sugar does not make the drink healthier, but starves the culture of energy. Longer fermentation results in greater conversion of sugar to beneficial by-products. This and enough initial sugar gives the healthiest tea. Too much sugar gives more alcohol and a quickly souring drink. The chart below is taken from the Cultures for Health website:

A table of sugar types

Tea – brewing Kombucha requires real tea (camellia sinensis) for both minerals and nitrogen. We recommend using organic tea whenever possible to avoid chemical contaminants. The type of tea used to brew Kombucha can affect the health of the SCOBY as well as the taste of your finished brew. The final brew will also vary with the strength of the tea you make and how long you let it brew. Use organic tea if possible. If using tea bags – use unbleached tea bags. Do not use any flavoured teas, like Earl Grey, lemon, strawberry, peppermint, etc. Tea should not contain essential oils or artificial flavourings or sweetners as this may kill the kombucha culture. Be careful not to boil your water if using green tea as this will make your tea bitter.

Herbal tea can be used for flavouring or therapeutic reasons mixed in lesser (10-30%) proportions to ordinary tea. Those with strong volatile oils, like camomile, sage, rosemary, mints, thyme, yarrow and St. Johns wort, can alter the structure of the fungus. Use 2 teaspoons of herbs per litre. (Grated ginger or dried apple rings can be soaked for a day, the liquid then boiled and added). Some herbs have long term side effects and knowledge is advisable.

There are a few herbs that won't kill your brew - such as elderflower, raspberry, nettle, rosehip and hibiscus, which add delicious flavours and other characteristics to the brew, including the medicinal benefits of the herb. Elderflower in particular adds a high level of fizz and sparkle to the drink, and imparts a 'dry Muscat' flavour. We suggest you do not experiment with herbs until you have completed several brews, and are familiar with the variables in a 'normal' brew. Ensure you keep a backup scoby, in case your brew dies.

We usually use a portion of green tea when making a herbal kombucha. If you use herbs to make your brew, generally, you need to use six times more herbs (by weight) than the tea you are replacing.

Types of Tea:

Black (Ceylon, English Breakfast, Darjeeling, etc.): Fully oxidized tea leaves; provides all the nutrients for the SCOBY; makes a bold, fruity-tasting Kombucha. Avoid Earl Grey and other black teas containing oils and added flavouring. Best choice for activating a SCOBY and making Kombucha regularly.

Oolong: Partially oxidized tea leaves; makes a milder flavoured Kombucha, somewhat fruity and grassy. A favourite for brewing Kombucha! Works well for activating a dehydrated SCOBY and making Kombucha regularly.

Green (Jasmine, gunpowder green, etc.): Withered and steamed tea leaves; minimally oxidized; makes a lighter, softer Kombucha. Avoid green teas with oils or added flavouring. Use in combination with black tea or on its own.

White: Baked and dried tea leaves, minimally oxidized; flowery and delicate flavour. Use in combination with black, green, or oolong tea. Not recommended for activating SCOBY or making first 4 batches of Kombucha.

Red (Rooibos): Usually refers to a herbal tea from South Africa; fresh, almost nutty flavour. Use in combination with at least 25% black tea for brewing Kombucha. Not recommended for activating SCOBY or making first 4 batches of Kombucha.

Yerba Mate & Other Herbal Teas : Made from plants other than camellia sinensis; flavour varies. Use in combination with at least 25% black tea for brewing Kombucha. Avoid herbal teas containing oils or added flavouring. Not recommended for activating SCOBY or making first 4 batches of Kombucha.

Herbal or Decaffeinated Kombucha

Caffeine in tea – if you are concerned about the amount of caffeine in your tea or in your kombucha you can get rid of much of it by pre-steeping the tea. Caffeine is highly soluble, so usually 80% of the tea’s caffeine content is released from the leaf within the first 20 to 30 seconds of steeping. You can have virtually caffeine-free tea, without sacrificing much flavour, by discarding the water after the first 30 to 60 seconds of steeping and adding fresh hot water to the now-decaffeinated leaf. This will not affect the flavonoid and antioxidants content of the tea. Steeping the tea for five minutes or more will allow the flavonoids to develop.

Another option is to blend herbals with real tea to create a lower caffeine tea/tisane mix, naturally lowering overall content but nutrifying the culture at the same time. Experiment to find a method that works for you.

BOTTLING YOUR KOMBUCHA

Now place a funnel into your clean bottle and pour your Kombucha right into the bottle. Fill the bottle almost to the top, leaving a maximum headspace of 1" or less. The less you have the more carbonation that you will have.

Please note, NEVER shake Kombucha it can explode. The higher you fill the bottle, the more likely you are going to need to burp your Kombucha to relieve the gas bubbles a bit.

You have three options from this point.

  1. You can drink the Kombucha as is and put in the refrigerator. It will have less fizz with this method but still taste amazing.
  2. You can cap the Kombucha and store in a warm, dark place and allow it to sit for 2-3 days. This will create a more fizzy Kombucha (assuming there is still sufficient sugar in your Kombucha).
  3. You can add fruit juice, fruit chunks, herbal tea, herbs etc and second ferment your Kombucha to make some interesting flavours.

The Divine Health website should also give you some ideas for flavouring your Kombucha.

WHAT HAPPENS DURING FERMENTATION

The tea will start to smell fermented and a few gas bubbles appear. The baby SCOBY will slowly thicken and will turn a creamy beige colour. SCOBYs can vary greatly in thickness, transparency and colour. Brownish yeast sediment forms and drifts to the bottom. The tea will slowly change from sweet to sweet/sour. The longer it is left the sourer the tea will become.

When making Kombucha, the tea will form a clear or translucent skin across the surface –this is the new baby SCOBY forming and it will be the size of the opening of your jar. It will form a seal and this will let the yeasts in the Kombucha seal in the naturally occurring carbonation. The original mother SCOBY may float or sink – do not worry about this. The yeasts will begin to consume the sugars in the tea and the by-product of this is a natural carbonation. One certain yeast found in Kombucha is called Saccharomyces boulardii (a probiotic commonly used in hospitals).

It’s all about the fizz.

Enough about these good yeasts, and back to how to make your tea bubbly. The yeasts eat the sugar and create carbonation. When they run out of food, they die off. Your Kombucha then turns to vinegar and you will lose your carbonation. So, the secret is to get your Kombucha right when it is not too sweet but not sour. This is the perfect time to drink Kombucha and also has the most benefits. Many think the more sour it is, the better. This is not true, because then you lose the yeasts that help your body flourish because they have died off.

If you want super bubbly fruit flavored Kombucha, here is the trick. Make your fermented Kombucha tea. Don’t let it get overly sour. Bottle it with your fruit juice when it is still just a tiny bit sweet. Add your juice and transfer to airtight bottles. The yeasts will go crazy eating the sugars out of your tea and making you lots of bubbles. When it turns too sour on your first ferment, the yeasts have died and can’t do their job of making your tea bubbly. When you cap off the air in your second ferment they do their job more efficiently. This is why it is usually more bubbly than the first ferment. Check your bottles after 2-3 days to see if they are to your liking and bubbly, or leave them to ferment longer. Place in the fridge when done.

STORAGE OF CULTURES

It is recommended that you start a SCOBY Hotel with your extra cultures and mature Kombucha and store it at room temperature. A SCOBY Hotel is a way to safely store all your extra SCOBYs so that if something goes wrong, you will always have a back up. Add sweet tea from time to time to compensate for evaporation and to feed your SCOBYs. They will last in a jar for 4-6 weeks and then will require feeding so they don’t starve.

The SCOBY and starter liquid for future batches should never be refrigerated as there is no advantage and storing the cultures at such a low temperature for extended time puts the culture into a deep sleep, which leads to inferior tasting Kombucha and the risk of mould.

TASTE

It should not be too acidic unless you are using it for diabetes or weight loss (with up to doubled fermentation time and so more like dry white wine). It should approximate cider or shandy. It is healthier on the sharp side (as more sugar has been broken down and more of the beneficial by-products have formed) but should still be pleasant. Taste the tea every couple of days to make sure it doesn’t become over-acid. (Antibiotic properties don’t appear until the 7th or 8th day between 20 and 30 degrees centigrade.) Advice to leave for 7-10-12-14 days etc. is a guideline only. Temperatures and conditions vary too much between households to be exact. If the tea is too strong, try less tea next time, or more or less sugar until you work out how you like it. Try a milder or different tea. Experiment. If the tea is too strong to drink, dilute it with water, apple juice, etc. (It is less effective diluted but still beneficial).

Too Sour Kombucha

Anyone who brews Kombucha has had a batch go too long and get too sour. The first use for overly sour Kombucha is to make that SCOBY Hotel! But keep in mind, pure Kombucha will never spoil; the low pH provides protection against invasion from harmful microorganisms. Once flavourings have been added, there is a chance for off flavours to develop in the bottle, and of course it can become too sour to enjoy over time depending on your personal preference. But unless you see mould, it is not spoiled.

If you find the flavour of your Kombucha to be too sharp or sour, you can try a few simple ways to adjust the flavour.

• Dilute your KT with water or juice. This will shift the pH and smooth out the flavor but will still give you all the benefits; think of it like lemon in your water.

• Shorten your brewing cycle. If it is getting too sour to drink, then start tasting it earlier in the cycle.

• Flavour your booch. Hibiscus and Elderflower may increase the tartness slightly so bottle age them longer before drinking (a few weeks). Chamomile imparts an apply flavour and when paired with lavender is quite nice. Using fruit juice or fruit pieces can also add a nice flavor and helps increase the fizz. Try a variety of flavours until you find ones you like.

If the flavour is still too intense, overly sour Kombucha has literally 100’s of uses around the house and in a variety of cooking and beauty recipes.

MOULD CONTAMINATION

Mould can form on the culture if the brew is not acidic enough - usually because insufficient starter was used. Other factors which can spoil a culture are sunlight, contact with metal, cigarette smoke, insufficient air, or water with no minerals in it (distilled or reverse osmosis filtered). A dead culture will darken and sink to the bottom.

If mould does grow on the surface of the Kombucha mushroom, you need to throw out both the culture and tea and start again with a fresh Kombucha culture. Do not risk drinking it.

ALKALINE PH ENVIRONMENT

Kombucha becomes very acidic (approximately pH 3.0 when finished), however it has an alkaline effect when digested, similar to lemon juice. Therefore, it is recommended to drink Kombucha first thing in the morning before breakfast to have an alkaline effect on your digestive system. The pH of the Kombucha batch should be between 2.5 and 4.6. A pH of less than 2.5 makes the drink too acidic for normal human consumption, while a pH greater than 4.6 increases the risk of contamination.

KOMBUCHA – OTHER USAGE

The SCOBY eventually losses its propagation abilities and does not ferment tea well. When this happens you should discard the mother and replace with a new baby. Here are few of the ideas for your old SCOBYs and vinegary Kombucha:

  1. Give them to your animals
  2. Use SCOBY if you have arthritis pain as a compress on your joints or muscles
  3. Put it on cuts or abrasions as a natural bandaid, SCOBY disinfects the wound
  4. SCOBYs are of course edible, it is only a matter of taste; try dehydrating or adding to your smoothy
  5. Make sourdough bread with Kombucha vinegar mixed half with water, and leave to ferment for 10-20 hours
  6. Use instead of conditioner to rinse hair with Kombucha vinegar
  7. Add Kombucha vinegar to your bath water for a refreshing bath, soak your feet in water with added Kombucha vinegar to kill fungus on your skin and toe nails.

DEALING WITH FRUIT FLIES

Fruit flies are attracted to Kombucha and other ferments. They will lay their eggs on your SCOBY if given half the chance. If you see any fruit flies in your kitchen put some Kombucha and a few drops of dishwashing liquid into a bowl. The fruit flies will be attracted and will drown. Problem solved!

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