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How to Make Kombucha
It was a hot summer day thousands of years ago when an exhausted Chinese housewife sat down for a moment to catch her breath and enjoyed a cup of hot tea after sending her children outside to play. After only a few small sips, she heard yelling and crying outside….
Weeks later, she found the cup of tea and saw that something thick and slimy was covering the top. Ugh! She lifted it up, sniffed it. Not bad – a little sour, a little fruity. There was still some tea under this strange mass, and for some reason, she was compelled to take a sip and – it was delicious! Slightly sweet, tangy, and with a little bit of a tingle. She brewed up a big batch of tea, poured it into a big jug, and dropped the “tea mushroom” on top. She covered it with a cloth and placed the jug on the cupboard. And lo and behold, kombucha was born.
At long last, the question has been answered: the SCOBY came first.
Kombucha defined:
That acronym, SCOBY, stands for “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.” Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, doesn’t that set your stomach a-grumblin’? Kombucha is the name of the drink that is produced using this culture. It’s a fermented beverage that contains a small amount of alcohol.
Getting started:
I made my first batch of kombucha several years ago in a flurry of wanting to make everything from scratch. That didn’t last long, but my habit of making kombucha did. I’d be a monkey’s uncle if anyone in my neck of the woods had a SCOBY to give to me, so I had to buy one. Once you get one, you pretty much have one (plus son of SCOBY, grandson of SCOBY, great-grandson of SCOBY – you get the idea) forever, unless you leave it too long in the refrigerator or it gets too hot.
I’ve purchased SCOBYs from Kombucha Brooklyn. You can get complete starter kits (including tea bags) or just the SCOBY – but you’ll always get detailed instructions on how to brew your beverage. Alternatively, if you know someone who brews their own, they undoubtedly will have many, many “mothers” hanging around in their refrigerators. Ask them if you can have one – along with about 1 cup of kombucha. I’ve seen SCOBYs for sale (or even free) on craigslist, but, I don’t know. That kind of creeps me out. You have to have real trust in a person to take one of their SCOBYs – it’s kind of like sharing a toothbrush. Warning: SCOBYs are…unattractive. And slimy. But I feel a certain tenderness towards them, like a mother (see what I did there?) has for her homely child.
Bottling & Storage:
Once satisfied with the taste, it’s time to bottle your brew. As I mentioned above, I use generously-sized bottles with flip tops, but mason jars work just fine. When I first began bottling my k
Fill your big jar with hot tap water and let it sit while you boil the 14 cups of water. I do this because I think it will prevent the big jar from shattering when I pour in the boiling water. Who knows. It’s a ritual, okay? Since I boil the water in my electric tea kettle, I have to do this part in two batches.
When the water has come to a boil, pour the tap water out of the big jar, add the sugar and pour in the boiling water, stirring to dissolve the sugar completely. Now add the tea bags. If you’ve had to do a second batch of boiling water, add it to the jar. Stir gently. Let the jar sit on the counter for several hours until just warm. If you add the SCOBY right away, you’ll kill the poor thing.
Once the water has cooled enough, remove the teabags and add the SCOBY along with the one cup of reserved kombucha. Cover the jar with the cloth and put the rubber band around the top of the jar. You want to keep out the fruit flies because fruit flies love kombucha like Lindsay Lohan loves vodka. Put the jar in a warm place; I use the top of my refrigerator.
ombucha, I strained the liquid through a coffee filter – – what a monstrous waste of time (not to mention messy). Forget that. I use a funnel to get the liquid more or less cleanly into the bottles and I don’t mind the little bits of primordial ooze floating around. The kombucha will have a slight bubbly quality to it – but batches vary. Sometimes you get a lot of fizz and sometimes very little.
You do want to remember that you’ll need to reserve about 1 cup from your batch for use in the next batch. I store this extra in a mason jar in the refrigerator. You’ll also notice that now you have two “mothers.” Sometimes they fuse together and sometimes they’re still separate – either way – they are both good to use for additional batches of kombucha. Occasionally, when my ‘frige gets too full of SCOBYs, I pop a few right into the compost pile. (This kind of makes me sad, but I’m sure it does wonderful things in there.)
After pouring your brew into bottles, you want to close the jars and let them sit at room temperature for a few days. The kombucha will continue to ferment and, if you’re really lucky, will develop even more fizziness. How long you let it sit before storing it in the refrigerator is a matter of personal taste. It will take a few batches for you to get a feel for it. The kombucha is now ready for its home in your refrigerator. Once cold, it makes a fantastic treat on a hot summer day.
Keeping track:
I started a journal with my very first kombucha, not only because I thoroughly enjoy making lists and using my ruler to make straight lines, but because it helps me figure out what flavors work together and which don’t, and I can keep an eye on average brewing lengths over the seasons. I make notes about how each brew tastes, when I started it, when I bottled it, when I put the bottles in the refrigerator, and so on. Completely optional, but helpful if you think you might brew regularly.
Safety:
Make sure that the big jar, bottles, spoon, and especially your hands are clean. I’m from an era when eating dirt was today’s equivalent of speed-loading antioxidants. I credit my childhood dust, dirt, and germ consumption with the low number of colds I’ve had in my lifetime. So, I’m probably a little bit lax in this area when it comes to handling kombucha. A biohazard suit is not necessary. In other words, I don’t go full Howard Hughes on it – but I do make sure my hands are washed and all of the jars/bottles/utensils are clean.
DO NOT drink your kombucha if it smells bad, “off,” or just plain rotten. It should have a sour, slightly vinegary smell – it’s a clean smell and you’ll know immediately if you have a bad batch. DUMP IT and start over. It’s not worth a trip to the hospital. If you see mold on the top – your batch has gone seriously south. The SCOBY that develops should be pale-colored, smooth and shiny, not green and fuzzy. I’ve made more batches of kombucha than I can count (actually, I could count them thanks to my journal, but I’m too lazy) and I’ve only had 2 batches that I’ve tossed out, and not because they’d “gone bad.” I’d let them ferment too long and by the time I got to them, they tasted like vinegar that had been distilled through dirty socks.
Health benefits:
Kombucha followers attest to the many benefits derived from drinking daily glasses of kombucha – everything from improving digestion, liver detoxification, clearer skin, and suddenly being able to sing in perfect pitch; I can’t say that I’ve experienced anything earth shattering, but then I don’t drink it every day. A quick internet search will yield way more information about this than you’d be able to read in a lifetime. I drink it cuz it tastes good.
Bottom line:
Making your own kombucha is fun (addictive), easy, and a lot cheaper than that store-bought sugary liquid that passes for kombucha. (I should add that I’ve never tasted commercial kombucha…) I don’t know about you, but I don’t really need the FDA telling me how to drink my “fungus tea” anyway; independence and personal responsibility are good things. Now, go forth and brew. (And let me know if you need a SCOBY…)
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