Simple Brewing and Bottling Instructions

These are my simple brewing instructions that I provided at my demo earlier this year for the Urban Homesteaders' League Market Stand. In addition, I've included my simple bottling instructions. More detailed brewing instructions can be found here, and more detailed bottling instructions are here. In addition, this is a link to a post where I list/link to several other kombucha recipes for more perspective and additional information. There is no recipe that's "right." Every brewer has his or her own style and favorite recipe, so adapt the recipe to what works for you!

My next Kombucha Brewing Demo will be sometime in December. Stay tuned for details, and happy brewing!

BREWING DIRECTIONS

Note: It is recommended to clean the equipment with white distilled vinegar, because of soap’s antibacterial properties, which may harm the bacteria in the SCOBY.

Materials

• 1 kombucha culture (also known as a kombucha mother or a SCOBY)
• 2 black or green tea bags (or around 1 tsp. loose leaf tea) per quart water
• ¼ cup (50 g) sugar per quart water
• ½ cup (4 fl. oz) starter tea per quart water
• Water
• 1 glass jar
• 1 pot to boil the water (such as stainless steel, don’t use aluminum)
• 1 clean cloth or paper towel
• 1 rubber band

Directions

1. Boil the water.

2. Add the tea and allow it to steep for 15 minutes.

3. Remove the tea bags/tea leaves.

4. Add the sugar and stir until it all dissolves.

5. Let the sweet tea solution cool down to room temperature (hot temperatures can kill the SCOBY).

6. Pour the sweet tea solution into the brewing container.

7. Add the starter tea into the brewing container and stir it so that it’s evenly distributed throughout the solution.

8. Add the SCOBY that is also at room temperature (it’s ok if it floats or sinks).

9. Cover the container with the clean cloth and secure it with a rubber band.

10. Put your brewing vessel in a quiet, undisturbed spot.

a. With each brewing cycle, a new baby mushroom typically forms.

b. SCOBYs like warm temperatures and the brewing vessel shouldn’t be moved during the fermentation process, because movement will disrupt the formation of the new SCOBY.

c. SCOBYs prefer warm temperatures and brewing between 75-85 F is ideal, 68-85 F is ok.

11. Leave the tea to ferment for 6-14 days (kombucha ferments more quickly in warmer temperatures, so the 6-14 days is just a guideline).

12. Your kombucha tea is done! (Signs include an apple cider vinegar aroma or taste. Taste is the best indicator; it should taste similar to a slighty fizzy version of apple cider vinegar).

13. Set aside a SCOBY and some kombucha as starter tea for your next brew.

14. Drink your kombucha tea as is and store the extra in the fridge, or consider letting your kombucha undergo a second fermentation in the bottling process.

Tip: When first learning how to brew, it is recommended to brew smaller batches (1-2 quarts). Once you get the hang of it and the kombucha mother has produced new SCOBYs, you can brew larger quantities.

Sources:

• http://www.happyherbalist.com/libraryandresearch.aspx
• http://www.kombu.de/anleit-e.htm
• http://www.kombuchafuel.com
  

BOTTLING DIRECTIONS

Materials

• Kombucha
• Bottles and caps
• Bottle capper (if you are bottling your kombucha in beer bottles)
• Optional: small pieces of cut up fruit, ginger, herbs, or jams to add flavors to your kombucha. The possibilities are endless!

Directions

1. Optional: Add some flavors to your brew by adding little pieces of cut up fruit, ginger, herbs, or jam to your bottles. Smaller pieces are better because they give the yeast more surface area to act on.
2. Fill your bottle(s).
1. I typically leave around 1.5 inches of headroom for a 12 oz beer bottle.
3. Cap your bottle(s).
4. Leave your bottle(s) out at room temperature for 1-2 days, or for week(s).
5. Fill your bottle(s).
1. The kombucha is undergoing a secondary fermentation, which can produce more fizz in the kombucha. The secondary fermentation is also a good opportunity to add different flavors to your brew.
2. Kombucha ferments more quickly at higher temperatures.
3. Typically when I have a batch I try one bottle after a few days, and decide whether the rest of the bottles are ready to refrigerate or require more time to ferment.
4. *PLEASE NOTE* if you leave your bottles out for too long, they may explode due to the buildup of carbon dioxide.
6. Refrigerate the kombucha.
1. Refrigerating the kombucha will cause the yeast and bacteria to go dormant. Fermentation isn't completely stopped, but is slowed significantly.
7. Enjoy and drink your kombucha!

Where to shop: The Modern Homebrew Emporium is great for brewing supplies of any kind. Location: 2304 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140, T: (614) 498-0400.

Kombucha Recipes

My simple kombucha recipe using the traditional brewing method can be found here, and my more detailed brewing recipe is here.

Here are links to several other kombucha recipes for more perspective and for additional information:

The Traditional Brewing Method

• Kombucha Brewing Guide by Happy Herbalist
• Quick Recipe KT by Happy Herbalist
• How to make your own Kombucha Tea by Günther W. Frank
• Kombucha Recipe: How to Make Kombucha Tea by Manna International
• How to Make a Big Batch of Kombucha at instructables.com
• Kombucha Recipe at getkombucha.com
• Brewing and F&Q at Organic-Kombucha.com

The Continuous Brewing Method

• I cover continuous brewing in Part I and Part II
  
• Continuous Brewing Method by Happy Herbalist
• Continuous Brewing: Tastier, Easier and Superior Kombucha by the Weston A. Price Foundation
  

Kombucha: Gourmet Style and City Feed & Supply

A number of individuals have been asking me whether or not I have eaten a kombucha mushroom.

So one day when I had one mushroom too many, I finally decided to try it!

My comments: it was chewy, sticky, and the texture reminded me of the cold Chinese appetizer jellyfish noodles (which I actually really like!).

Photo: courtesy of Chow Times

However, the SCOBY that I had was somewhat old (I would say it had gone through 5+ cycles). And I have found that for consumption, the mushrooms get tougher with age, so the younger, more lightly colored mushrooms are easier to eat.

I am not sure if I will be eating another kombucha mushroom again. However, a friend recently gave me the idea of blending a SCOBY in a smoothie, which is something that I may need to try.

Happy Herbalist lists a number of different ideas and recipes for what to do with your kombucha mushrooms and tea, including using a kombucha mushroom as shoe leather or a drum skin, and using kombucha tea for marinades and even foot soaks.

Photo source: Happy Herbalist

You can also feed kombucha mushrooms to your dog, or composting them is another great option.

Oh yes, and another kombucha find: GT's Kombucha is sold at City Feed and Supply at 672 Centre St., Jamaica Plain! (I do not know if it's sold at their Boylston location, however). A bottle of GT's Kombucha from City Feed will set you back $3.99.

Have a good week, everyone! And thanks for reading!

Kombucha Workshops + the Continuous Brewing Method (Part I)

Sorry for the late recap, but last week final exams hit. Thankfully, all my finals are over and I'm very excited for summer!!!

I would first like to thank everyone who attended my workshop at the 2009 Boston Skillshare on April 19th! I was very impressed with the turnout, and you were a great audience! Although Keith Person was not able to hold his workshop, I was happy to be able to give out some mushrooms for him! Thanks, Keith!

I would also like to touch on the Continuous Brewing Method that I mentioned at the workshop.

The Continuous Brewing Method is an extremely easy way to ferment kombucha tea!

It involves drinking/drawing off 10-20% of your KT brew daily, and then replacing the amount that you drank with sweet tea (every day, every other day, or every three days) (1).

-Every time you add the sweet tea:

• You want to stir the brew to mix the old ferment with the new sweet tea, so the bacteria/yeast are distributed throughout.
• Stirring will bring in more oxygen that the bacteria need to do their job.
• Because you are disturbing the tea every time by stirring, no new babies will form. This is not a problem at all, unless you were looking to have extra SCOBYs on hand or if you wanted to give some SCOBYs away. If this is the case, you may want to use the traditional brewing method.

As an example, one recipe of Sweet Tea would be:

• 1 quart (aka 4 cups) water
• 2-3 tea bags (or around 1 tsp. or 3-5 g of loose leaf tea)
• 1/4 cup sugar (around 70 g)

Reminder: the key is to do everything proportionally. You can make more/less sweet tea, and store extra sweet tea in the fridge for a few days so that you won't need to brew it everyday.

Also, please remember that your sweet tea and your brew/mushroom need to be at the SAME TEMPERATURE! Otherwise, you will be increasing the risk of your SCOBY getting a mold infection.

For the continuous brewing method, you will need:

• A beverage dispenser- Happy Herbalist suggests that the amount of KT you drink daily should be 10-20% the size of your container. One way to obtain a beverage dispensor for continuous brewing is from online, such as from Happy Herbalist and getkombucha.com.

Sample Directions

1. Boil the water- not for too long, because the bacteria need the oxygen that's in the water.
2. Add the tea- steep for ~15 minutes or follow the tea's specific brewing instructions.
3. Remove the tea bags/tea leaves.
4. Add the sugar and mix until it is all dissolved.
5. Let the sweet tea cool down to room temperature (such as by leaving it overnight).
6. Draw off 10-20% of the fermented kombucha tea from your brewing container, and then add the sweet tea (which should be around the same amount of tea that you drew off).
7. Stir the fermented tea and the sweet tea.
8. Continue repeating these directions each day! :)

What's great is that the continuous brewing method is really simple and easy! Because you are starting with ~80-90% kombucha tea and ~10-20% sweet tea (vs. the other way around), your ferment is ready within ~24 hours (vs. being ready within 6-14 days). And you don't need to be exact, either- you can skip/overdo some days!

In order not to make this an overwhelming post, I will talk about some advantages and disadvantages of the continuous brewing method tomorrow!

Thanks for visiting my blog, and please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions!

Sources:
-http://www.happyherbalist.com/continuous_brewing.htm
-http://getkombucha.com/
-Photo: http://www.happyherbalist.com/continuous_brewing.htm

Your Average One-Gallon Kombucha Recipe

So I meant to make this a really brief Kombucha Brewing Recipe, but there was too much important information! So the truly short and simple recipe may have to wait. And I promise to post more Kombucha brewing/bottling details! These are just the "essential basics"!

Note: DO NOT use soap, which can kill some of the bacteria/probiotics! Please clean with distilled vinegar or some sort of sanitizer used by brewers, such as Iodophor!

MATERIALS

• 1 brewing container
  -glass is best
  -size depends on how much you want to brew
• 1 SCOBY aka a Kombucha Mushroom
• 3 quarts water (aka 12 cups)
  -preferably filtered water
• 5-6 tea bags (or around 2-3 tsp. or 15 g of loose leaf tea)
  -ex. Organic Green, Oolong, or Black Tea, or a combination
• 3/4 cup sugar (around 150 g)
  -What’s typical: organic evaporated cane juice
• 1.5 cups (12 oz) starter tea
  -From your previous batch, or some good, raw, store-bought, unflavored KT
  -The starter tea should be 10-20% of your overall brew
• 1 clean cloth
  -or a paper towel, coffee filter, or cheesecloth
  -make sure it’s big enough to cover the container
• 1 rubber band
  -or something to secure the cloth on the container
• Optional: pH strips/pH meter

DIRECTIONS

1. Boil the water.
   -Not for too long- remove the pot from the heat once the water reaches a boil.
   -Boiling reduces the oxygen and carbon in the water, which are needed for the fermentation process.
2. Add the tea and allow it to steep for 15 minutes (or follow the specific tea brewing instructions).
3. Remove the tea bags/tea leaves (or you can leave them there overnight. It's your choice).
4. Add the sugar and mix it until it all dissolves.
5. Let the sugar/tea solution cool to room temperature
   -Leaving it overnight is easiest.
   -Make sure the mixture is properly covered so nothing gets inside!
6. Pour the sugar/tea solution into the brewing container.
7. Add the starter tea into the brewing container and stir it so that it’s evenly distributed throughout the solution.
   -Optional: check the pH of the liquid. You want it to be between 3-4.
8. Add the SCOBY.
   -You want the temperatures of the sugar/tea solution, starter tea, and the SCOBY to be the same so that the SCOBY won’t get temperature shocked. SCOBYs are living things!
9. Cover the container with the clean cloth and secure it with a rubber band.
   -The goal is to allow oxygen in and keep pathogens out.
   -If you cover the container with cheesecloth, double layer it! The holes in cheesecloth are pretty big and may let pathogens inside.
10. Put your brewing container in a quiet, undisturbed spot.
    -Every time you brew, a new baby mushroom typically forms.
    -Factors promoting Kombucha Baby Mushroom formation:
    -Constant temperatures
    -Warm temperatures (SCOBYs particularly like 73-83°F, or 21-26°C)
    -Undisturbed spots- every time you disturb your brew, the new mushroom has to begin forming all over again.
    -To avoid:
    -Smoke (ex.: in kitchens)
    -Pollen
    -Direct sunlight (brewing in the light is ok, though)
11. Ferment for 6-8 days (when you’re brewing at around 80°F at a constant temp.)
    -Takes around 8-14 days when you’re brewing in the 70’s.
12. Your kombucha tea is done! Enjoy! To check-
    -It should taste like semi-sweet cider, hard apple cider, or vinegar
    -Optional: check the pH of your brew. It should be around 2.5-3.5.
13. Set aside 1.5 cups of KT for your next brew.
14. Drink your kombucha tea as is, or consider bottling your kombucha or letting it undergo a second fermentation (kombucha wine, anyone?)

Thanks to Happy Herbalist (and my own experience and research) for some of this information!

Note: You do not have to brew a gallon of KT at once! You just need to brew everything proportionally. (A useful conversion: 1 quart = 4 cups).

*HAPPY BREWING!*