Has anyone else tried making their own kombucha?

If you haven’t heard of it, it is a fermented sweet tea, full of good probiotics! Healthy for you, and even though it starts with sweet tea, a lot of the sugar gets eaten up by the yeast, so not bad for you. It forms this weird, alien looking kinda thing on top called a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast). I mean, it looks weird! And it’s alive! It moves around with a mind of its own, and makes babies!

Well, anyway, I tried some store bought kombucha and liked it, and I thought maybe the probiotics are a good idea. So, I ordered a SCOBY through Amazon, bought a couple of gallon jars, and charged ahead!

The idea is, brew some strong black tea (I added some green tea bags) in the correct strength, add the right amount of sugar and cool off to room temperature. Check. Add a little vinegar the first batch to bring to the right pH. Check. Pour in clean jar, check pH, then add that alien SCOBY. Check. Cover with a coffee filter and rubber band. Check.

Then comes the waiting… And worrying!

So the thing is, apparently every batch looks different. Sometimes the SCOBY is at the top, sometimes at the bottom. Sometimes it is on it’s side, or moving around. Then you get these stringy things. Apparently all of those things are OK.

But you have to watch out for mold!

OK. I had these weird looking little spots floating on top. I thought, Oh NO! Mold!

Well after searching on the internet, I found out my little spots weren’t mold. They were part of the new baby SCOBY.

Apparently if the little spots are waxy looking they are OK. If they are dry, fuzzy, and weird colored, then they are mold. Not good.

So, my baby SCOBY grew, and after about 14 days, I had kombucha! Bottled it up, added ginger slices, and let it ferment several more days.

Brewed up more tea, added sugar and some of the first batch of kombucha, added the same SCOBY’s (now I had the baby to start a second jar), and here we go!

Well, that one took off! Within several days that batch was done!

OK. The first batch I got 5 bottles of kombucha after about 2 weeks. So, after about a week for the second batch I got about 7 bottles.

But wait! Now the third batch is nearly ready to bottle (after 4 days) and I’m running out of bottles!

It almost sounds like I’m raising rabbits instead of a healthy drink!

Well, on the positive side of things, I guess I’m doing something right!