Making kombucha - first forays
Kombucha is a really delicious, complex fermented drink. Complex in terms of the flavours you can create, rather than being complex to make.
It is a fermented tea drink and the fermentation process involves the formation of a kombucha SCOBY (symbiotic community of bacteria and yeasts), which floats around in the liquid like a mother-ship. The visible SCOBY (which is made by cellulose-producing bacteria) is not actually essential to the making of kombucha, but the beneficial bacteria and yeasts that flourish in the liquid, are. That is why, when making a new batch of kombucha, we “backslop” some of a previous batch into the new batch to “seed” it with the bacteria and yeasts we want to encourage. I keep my floating SCOBY too, because it is a totally fascinating thing to watch develop. And with each brew, more baby SCOBYs will form, which will always grow to fit the exact shape of the vessel you put it in.
Kombucha mainly consists of the following bacteria and yeasts:
Gluconacetobacter – feed on the nitrogen in the tea and produce acetic and gluconic acid;
Lactobacillus – make lactic acid;
Acetobacter – make acetic acid and gluconic acid. And helps build the visible SCOBY;
Zygosaccharomyces – yeasts which produce alcohol and carbonation and contribute to building the SCOBY.
Komagataeibacter - cellulose-producing bacteria.
These microbes use the tea and the added sugar to ferment, thereby creating kombucha. Once bottled (anaerobic environment) the alcohol content of this drink can rise, so bear this in mind if feeding to children. Kombucha will also contain caffeine from the tea used to make it.
No one is totally sure from where kombucha originated, some think it came from Russia, but it is older than recorded history, so all we can do is speculate. We do know that kombucha is a delicious tea-based fermented drink that contains bacteria and yeasts, along with their metabolic by-products, many of which may benefit your digestive system.
The known by-products of this fermentation process are butyric acid, caprylic acid, gluconic acid, lactic acid, alcohol and carbon dioxide. Kombucha also contains vitamin C, various B vitamins and, if you use green teas to make it, a powerful antioxidant from green tea, a catechin called EGCG, which has been shown to protect against cell damage and inflammation.
Making kombucha is an aerobic process – oxygen is required, so don’t shut the lid on it until the bottling stage!
It is really worth experimenting with what tea you use. Your kombucha SCOBY prefers tannin and polyphenol-rich teas, black teas, green teas and white teas. The choice you make will affect the flavour of your kombucha. Herbal teas are ok, but only if mixed in with the above teas at the same time. Avoid teas that contain oils – such as earl grey or flavoured teas.
There is plenty of information on the internet on varying styles and approaches to fermenting kombucha. Have a read. Have a go and discover which style you prefer.
Kombucha recipe
Equipment
2 x 2 litre kilner jars
A number of BREWING bottles, Kombucha is not as lively as water kefir but, having had a kilner bottle of water kefir explode on me once, I now only use BREWING BOTTLES for the shut lid stage (i.e. when there is likely to be a build up of carbon dioxide from the fermenting process). Kilner bottles aren’t strong enough, as I discovered the hard way. Having said that, fermenting expert, Sandor Katz, now generally uses plastic bottles to avoid the risk of injury and you may want to take this approach.
A filter funnel
Water, ideally filtered (fluoride and chlorine are not great for kombucha microbes).
Sugar, I use demerara.
Tea, I use tea bags rather than leaves (less hassle), the tea is a mineral source for the kombucha microbes.
The variables involved in fermenting kombucha
Temperature, the warmer it is, the faster it will ferment.
Time, the longer I leave the brew, the less sweet the kombucha is, because the microbes digest the sugar. I don’t like it too sweet but equally, the longer it is left, the more alcoholic it becomes and if left for weeks and weeks, the acetobacter eventually take over and turn my kombucha into kombucha vinegar for me. This is great for dressings but not so good to drink.
Amount of water, ideally filtered water.
Amount of sugar, this is the food source for the kombucha microbes.
Amount of kombucha SCOBY, both from kombucha mother and from backslop (see later).
Mineral supply, what type of tea you choose to use and how much.
Oxygen, the microbial activity involved in kombucha is aerobic so it is important to ensure that, until you bottle your finished product, the lid of your vessel remains open. I just secure a muslin over the opening with an elastic band to avoid any unwanted additions (such as fruit flies).
Cleanliness, I am not obsessing about the cleanliness of utensils. I either hand wash them in hot water or wash them in the dish washer.
If things don’t quite work out and I can’t see bubbles forming on the surface over time, then the chances are that one of my variables needs tweaking.
Ingredients
2 litres of cold filtered water
100g of demerara sugar
Approx 125 ml of kombucha tea from previous batch (called backslop).
4 tea bags , I am currently using a mix of green tea and white tea.
A kombucha SCOBY
Method
Pour 1 litre of the water into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
Leave the other litre of water (which remains cold) in a jug.
Once the water in the saucepan has boiled, turn off the heat.
Add the 4 tea bags to the saucepan and leave to steep and to cool.
Once steeped and cooled for around 20 minutes, remove the tea bags (don’t leave it to stew).
Stir in the 100g of sugar to dissolve it put a lid on the saucepan and leave the brew to cool further.
Once cooler, add it to the 2 litre kilner jar.
Add in most of the 1 litre of water from the jug - ideally, you want the level to come to just around the shoulder of the kilner.
The mix should now be cool enough so you can add your 125 ml back slop of previous brew kombucha the sugary tea brew. You can add a little more back slop if you fancy to.
Slip your kombucha SCOBY into the kilner jar if you have one. It doesn’t matter if you don’t, your new kombucha will grow one anyway.
Cover with a muslin or breathable cloth and put somewhere safe for around at least 4-7 days. The muslin allows air circulation but prevents unwanted fruit flies etc. paying a visit to your lovely kombucha.
I like to label my jar so I know what tea I used and what date I made it. It is easy to forget.
After around 4 days, start tasting your kombucha, you want to catch it at a point where it is a delicious balance between sweet and tart.
You can also leave it to brew for much longer. My friend Caroline over-ripens hers so it is very tart and then takes a small amount in a glass and dilutes it with fizzy water. Find the way to consume it that you like.
Once you are happy that it has that tart/sweet tang of kombucha, if you don’t want to further flavour your kombucha, you are ready to bottle it. Filter your ready-to-drink kombucha through a filter funnel into brewing bottles or plastic bottles. Leave a little air space at the top of the bottle (don’t fill it right up) to allow room for carbon dioxide build-up as fermentation continues in the bottle. This will ensure your kombucha is a little fizzy without the bottle exploding.
Remember to hold 125ml back of your ripe kombucha though and the cellulose SCOBY so that you can use them to seed your next kombucha batch to start this whole process again. It is annoying to realise, too late, that you drank it all and have none to seed your next batch with.
I prefer to flavour my ready-to-drink kombucha, rather than consuming it plain, so instead of bottling it just yet, filter off your 125ml “back slop” and SCOBY (see above) and pour the rest of your ready-to-drink kombucha into a fresh kilner jar.
Add some fruit or herbs of your choice; mixed berries makes a nice kombucha, so do elder flowers, lemon and ginger, mint, turmeric and more. The choices are endless.
Allow to ferment for a further 24 hours at room temperature I do this bit with the lid closed.
Then filter off the herbs/fruit and bottle the flavoured kombucha into brewing bottles or plastic bottles, as above, so that it can become carbonated.
Then refrigerate (to minimise further fermentation) and DRINK! Remember to burp the bottles and remember, the longer you leave kombucha, the higher the alcohol content it may contain. The more sugar you use, the more potential for alcohol. As far as I can gather, the range of alcohol content is from around 0.5% to 2.5% but if you want almost no alcohol, drink it soon after bottling.
To keep a continuous supply of kombucha, simultaneously begin the whole process again as you are flavouring or bottling your latest kombucha brew. This allows you, as your last batch becomes ready to drink, to use it to backslop your new batch and you can just slip your kombucha SCOBY straight from your last batch to your new batch.
If you don’t want to make kombucha so regularly, you can just put your SCOBY into its usual sugar and tea brew, but instead of leaving it out to ferment, put it in the fridge. It will survive there indefinitely in what some call a “SCOBY Hotel”.
Remember that your SCOBY mother will get thicker and thicker with time. You can either keep the older layers of SCOBY and just keep brewing with a thicker and thicker visible SCOBY. This will eventually affect the levels of oxygen that can reach your kombucha liquid and this will affect your end product. I tend to peel the oldest layers off and either keep them in a SCOBY hotel for future use, give them to friends or feed them to the dog (who ADORES eating them).
To me, kombucha is a delicious tonic – I don’t drink gallons of the stuff but I thoroughly enjoy it when I do have it.
We are all individual. This is the basics of my practice but this wonderful process is totally interactive and involves each of us working out what volume/rate/fermentation time/flavor best suits us and the environment in which we live. That takes a bit of experimenting and it involves trusting our senses of taste and smell and adjusting our process to suit us.
There is so much information online, enjoy falling into the internet black hole that is fermenting websites. You will see that there are so many different ways to ferment kombucha, enjoy finding your own.
