Kombucha

[Yooper]

I don't usually make a lot of kombucha, just a few bottles at a time since I rarely make enough to keg. But it's hot. I usually drink only a couple of different non-alcoholic beverages- water (carbonated usually from a keg) and coffee (two cups per day).

I'm an anti-sugar freak so don't ever touch soda or fake sugar drinks. So no lemonade, no soda, no flavored stuff. I will do gin & tonic a few times a year on a super hot day as a pre-dinner drink, but otherwise no sweet stuff or mixers.

My latest kombucha batch is sooooo good though. It's simple, just the fermented tea until it's not the least bit sweet, and then I added some home-grown blueberries and blackberries and a few slices of fresh ginger and bottled. I'm drinking it now over ice- it's a little fizzy, tart and "bright" and I don't miss the sweetness.

Does anybody else make kombucha? I'm really the only one who drinks it and I'd rather keg it to have on tap as needed but 3 gallons of kombucha may last me a long long time.

 

[Minbari]

I know @GFHomebrew does

 

[Sandy Feet]

I drink it, but I don't make it. My sister's husband does.

 

[Sunfire96]

It's been a couple years since I was making it regularly

 

[Sandy Feet]

Yooper,
Are you up north now? I was going to say down here it is supposed to be 97 today with a heat index between 104-110. I hope it isn't that bad up north.

 

[Zambi]

I have to admit to never having drunk or made kombucha....

 

[Sandy Feet]

I have to admit to never having drunk or made kombucha....

Fruity and very fizzy with less sugar than soda. I usually order one every week when Amazon delivers my groceries. Down here, Publix carries them in the produce section, but they are not cheap. They are $3 + for a pint bottle at the store.

 

[Donoroto]

I thought ‘Booch was sour?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

https://www.google.com/search?q=Kom...rceid=chrome-mobile&source=chrome.ob&ie=UTF-8

 

[Donoroto]

Ah. Tangy. To me that means sour.

 

[Sandy Feet]

It depends on how much ginger is used, what fruits are used, and how much sugar is in it.

 

[Zambi]

So how do you make this stuff if you can't buy it in the shop and don't know anyone that does and can give you a slice of scoby?
With sourdough, you can make your own "mother". How do you make your own scoby?

 

[Sandy Feet]

Not sure about that. We can get them at the homebrew store. Maybe Yooper might have an idea. It is an open fermentation.

 

[Yooper]

Yooper,
Are you up north now? I was going to say down here it is supposed to be 97 today with a heat index between 104-110. I hope it isn't that bad up north.

Yep, I'm up north, but it's record breaking high temps here, and about the same temperature at my house in Florida. It's going to be hotter tomorrow, and even hotter on Tuesday with 0% chance of rain. I think 97F air temperature right now.
Here's what I was doing earlier.

It's more of a gin & tonic day, but we split an IPA and then drank tons of water. My dog was having a blast. The kombucha is refreshing though and I'm having one now!

 

[Yooper]

Fruity and very fizzy with less sugar than soda. I usually order one every week when Amazon delivers my groceries. Down here, Publix carries them in the produce section, but they are not cheap. They are $3 + for a pint bottle at the store.

I thought ‘Booch was sour?

So how do you make this stuff if you can't buy it in the shop and don't know anyone that does and can give you a slice of scoby?
With sourdough, you can make your own "mother". How do you make your own scoby?

It's so much cheaper to make it- like pennies a pint. The one I'm drinking now is blueberry/ginger with a medium carbonation. I picked the blueberrys last summer and froze them and put a few in whole with some shaved ginger and it's really really good!

@Donoroto It's not sour and not really that tangy- it's 'bright' and a bit tart. Not vinegar tart, although there can be acetobacter of course. It's more like a mild lactic acid tartness, It can be sweetened of course, and some will use honey or sugar or other things to sweeten, but I'm pretty anti-sugar in my diet so don't sweeten it at all. I've had a soda maybe twice in the last 30 years, and I have 0 sweet tooth so maybe it is more sour than you'd like though. I don't like sweet things very much.

@Zambi That's a tough one. I made my own sourdough starter of course, but kombucha wouldn't be successful by just letting it sit out. The SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) is complex with lactobacillus, acetobacter, wild yeast, etc. I think I got my first one from Amazon about 20 years ago since no one local did it. I now just keep a 'SCOBY hotel' so I have them on hand. I was a tech editor on a book called Fermentation Kitchen, and we had a chapter on kombucha, so I'll look it up and see if we had suggestions then.

 

[Yooper]

 

[Sandy Feet]

My Brother-In-Law has good luck with the frozen blueberries at the store, and he also uses ginger. That looks nice.

 

[Donoroto]

It's so much cheaper to make it- like pennies a pint. The one I'm drinking now is blueberry/ginger with a medium carbonation. I picked the blueberrys last summer and froze them and put a few in whole with some shaved ginger and it's really really good!

@Donoroto It's not sour and not really that tangy- it's 'bright' and a bit tart. Not vinegar tart, although there can be acetobacter of course. It's more like a mild lactic acid tartness, It can be sweetened of course, and some will use honey or sugar or other things to sweeten, but I'm pretty anti-sugar in my diet so don't sweeten it at all. I've had a soda maybe twice in the last 30 years, and I have 0 sweet tooth so maybe it is more sour than you'd like though. I don't like sweet things very much.

@Zambi That's a tough one. I made my own sourdough starter of course, but kombucha wouldn't be successful by just letting it sit out. The SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) is complex with lactobacillus, acetobacter, wild yeast, etc. I think I got my first one from Amazon about 20 years ago since no one local did it. I now just keep a 'SCOBY hotel' so I have them on hand. I was a tech editor on a book called Fermentation Kitchen, and we had a chapter on kombucha, so I'll look it up and see if we had suggestions then.

Perhaps I need to buy a commercial sample - I also prefer no sugar - and taste it. I can always spit it out I suppose. Maybe I’ll like it!

 

[Zambi]

It's so much cheaper to make it- like pennies a pint. The one I'm drinking now is blueberry/ginger with a medium carbonation. I picked the blueberrys last summer and froze them and put a few in whole with some shaved ginger and it's really really good!

@Donoroto It's not sour and not really that tangy- it's 'bright' and a bit tart. Not vinegar tart, although there can be acetobacter of course. It's more like a mild lactic acid tartness, It can be sweetened of course, and some will use honey or sugar or other things to sweeten, but I'm pretty anti-sugar in my diet so don't sweeten it at all. I've had a soda maybe twice in the last 30 years, and I have 0 sweet tooth so maybe it is more sour than you'd like though. I don't like sweet things very much.

@Zambi That's a tough one. I made my own sourdough starter of course, but kombucha wouldn't be successful by just letting it sit out. The SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) is complex with lactobacillus, acetobacter, wild yeast, etc. I think I got my first one from Amazon about 20 years ago since no one local did it. I now just keep a 'SCOBY hotel' so I have them on hand. I was a tech editor on a book called Fermentation Kitchen, and we had a chapter on kombucha, so I'll look it up and see if we had suggestions then.

I checked Sandor Katz book on fermentation and he also only mentions buying or getting from someone.
I suppose I got to do the same as @Donoroto : Taste first, then continu

 

[Smartrem]

So how do you make this stuff if you can't buy it in the shop and don't know anyone that does and can give you a slice of scoby?
With sourdough, you can make your own "mother". How do you make your own scoby?

I think you can just grow it from a bottle of non pasteurized plain kombucha with tea and sugar (like you'd make yogurth from one of the shop). So you don't rely on someone to give you a SCOBY but you just grow your own