Probiotic Princess: Kombucha Home Brewing 101

This is my own little guide to home brewing kombucha tea. It may seem long, but I promise, it isn't a difficult task and if you are a kombucha lover, home brewing is the way too go. Check out my guide and if you need a SCOBY I  have an extra one lying around every 2 weeks!

One of my proudest moments of going granola was drinking a bottle of my first batch of homemade kombucha. If you don't know what kombucha is, you are missing out my friend. It's another one of those things where I'm like, "How have I not known about this stuff my whole life?!" because although it's only become popular as of late, it's actually been around in China since the BC's and has been commercially bottled in America since the late 1990's. 

If you don't know what kombucha is, it's a fermented tea that gets it's probiotic power from a SCOBY, which stands for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. It's slightly effervescent (fizzy) and can vary in taste, depending on how long it's been fermenting. Kombucha has claims of countless health benefits but it's most well known for ability to produce a happy environment in your stomach (think yogurt) and gut health actually affects a multitude of things in our bodies including our metabolism and even our moods! Plus, it's delicious! (To some, it can be an acquired taste, but once you've got it, you'll be addicted)

Because of it's growing popularity, grocery stores now offer a huge variety of flavors that they've got nailed... but despite being super delicious, those store bought brands usually cost between 4 and 5 dollars for a bottle (which is 2 servings) and also, a little steep for most peoples taste, including mine! 

So naturally, it didn't take me long after becoming booch-obsessed, before I got curious about brewing my own tea and went ahead and ordered myself a SCOBY online. The scoby was $25 and came in a sealed plastic baggy in the normal mail and although it did come with instructions, the internet is also full of recipes and instructions for keep a healthy batch of booch. I wanted to get a few batches in before I did a blog post on my experience and by now, I've probably had around 10 successful batches... and by successful I mean totally delicious and comparable to a store bought bottle. (I did have one batch that I forgot to add sugar too and didn't realize until 2 weeks later went I sampled it before bottling... ew... but that wasn't anyones fault but my own!)

Now, I am here to say, that yes, the internet didn't lie... brewing your own kombucha is easy, cheap and super rewarding (to your belly and your wallet) So where do you start? You need a SCOBY so unless you know someone who brews themselves then you can always go online, like I did. Once you have your SCOBY, all you need to do is follow this basic recipe for black tea, add some sugar and throw in your SCOBY....

Ingredients
3-1/2 quarts water (14 cups)
1 cup sugar (regular granulated)
8 bags of plain black tea 
about 2 cups of your "starter tea"

*Your starter tea should come from a previous batch from a friend, or if you order online, your SCOBY will come with some tea in its packaging)

**You will also need a large enough container to store the booch in, glass is best (Never use metal! Metal messes with the kombucha flavor and can even ruin the SCOBY)

***You can use other types of tea for your base (green tea for example also works) but black tea is proven to work best (do your research!)

DISCLAIMER: Kombucha, once done fermenting can be slightly alcoholic... the longer it brews, the more it becomes so, but still, it usually isn't ever going to go over 1% while still being "good" tasting.

1. First you boil your water. Once it is boiling, add the sugar and stir in well until dissolved.
2. Add all of your tea bags and let the tea cool completely (this may take hours, but you do not want to add your SCOBY to warm tea)
3.Once the tea is cool, remove the tea bags and stir in your "starter tea"
4. Finally, pour your tea into the container in which it will brew and add your SCOBY.

And now all you have to do is wait!

Cover your container opening with a clean towel (cheesecloth is too thin) and secure it with a large rubberband (I use a thin headband)

I keep my brew in my spare room

Place your container somewhere where it will stay around room temperature, out of direct sunlight and where it wont get moved around too much. You may notice after a few days that a second SCOBY will begin to form... the mother and baby SCOBYS may sit at the bottom of the container or float to the top... they will look cream colored and may have streaks of brown yeast throughout them... you may also notice bubble and slimy looking blobs floating throughout.... mmmmm! Mold in your kombucha looks like... well, mold... green or white patches on your booch is no good... Google it if you are unsure!

Here is a new, baby SCOBY, all fresh lookin'

Here is an older, mother SCOBY... the brown yeasty streaks are normal

How long you let your kombucha ferment is all up to you, some people only let it go a week, while I prefer at least 2 weeks before "second fermentation". The longer your batch ferments, the less "sweet" it will taste as the culture eats the sugar in the tea. A longer brew also means more natural carbonation... I prefer a more sour, fizzy kombucha, thereofre I let my first fermentation go longer (An "overbrewed" batch will end up tasting vinegary). After your first couple batches, you will start to know exactly how long you like to brew for the first and second fermentation.

After about a week, you can start to sample your batch every day until it gets about where you want it... when its just about ready is when you can start your second fermentation (this is usually to add flavoring if you wish, it is also delicious without additional flavoring).

For second fermentation, you need to seperate your SCOBY and a few cups of the booch to use as the starter tea for your next batch... or you can do what I do and bottle your kombucha for the second fermentation and keep your SCOBY and extra tea in same container for the next batch.

You will also now have two SCOBY's on your hands... you can seperate them and start a second batch, toss the old mother, or there are a lot of other things you can do to actually use the old mother... at this moment, I am dehydrating my last mother into treats for my dogs!

Second Fermentation: There are many ways to go about second fermentation so I will share with you my process. I use Grolsch beer bottles with a swing top that make reusing very easy and I add the fruit juice of my choice (about a 1/4 cup or so) into my bottles before dispensing the kombucha from my big batch container. Using a party drink dispenser with a spigot makes this whole process very easy. You can add bits of fresh fruit to the bottle as well... pro tip: the more pulp in a juice, the more likely you are to get a baby SCOBY/chunks growing inside of your bottles. (Swolling a baby SCOBY grosses some people out, but if it doesn't bother you then you are just getting more goodness!) I fill my bottles about 3/4 of the way full, close them and then let them sit on my counter for about 3 days before refrigerating. The second fermentation really lets the fruit flavor soak in and also adds more bubbly! Be careful though, too long of a second fermentation inthe bottles can result in a lot of pressure, be careful when popping those tops! 

When your booch is ready, put it in the refrigerator, this stops/slows fermentation and carbonation for the most part but you should try to drink it within a month.

One of my favorite homemade batches, Tangerine!

I think I covered all of the important stuff but regardless, there is so much info out there on home brewing, all you have to do it look! Have fun with your flavors, so far I have only experimented with fresh fruit juices but I plan to try and make a Sarsaparilla batch soon!

Closing Out the Summer

We've been crazy busy as of late. Still working on the house but at the same time trying to milk every last "summer" weekend for what it's worth.

A few things have gotten done on the homestead front... we finally gave the goat house a coat of stain paint to protect it over the winter. James picked out a bright barn red and I love how it turned out. We still need to re-attach the windows and add a bit of cheesy to the house (I'm thinking maybe a flower box or two).

We also finally built them an alfalfa feeding trough... it was another episode of "Building with Sarah and James" (queue bickering and lots of sawdust). It turned out to be another beaut, made out of scraps found in the garage!

And the goats loved it!

Especially Willow!

We did a few more blackberry harvests (I did some real climbing to reach the motherlode of berries) but next year I hope to be more consistent with my harvests and hopefully make a pie or some jam. This year, most of the berries ended up in our bellies, straight off of the vine... but some of the berries went into some crafting as well! (Oh yeah, and all of the baby bushes that were growing on our ATV trail were harvested and thrown over the Sage, Willow and Jones. Twas a real feast, I think blackberry brambles are their most favorite!)

Blackberry paint

My mom made this dream catcher as a prizes for one of her disc golf tournaments

Our biggest project for the summer, though, was step 1 of Project: Mud Free Homestead. We've always had to deal with muddy pup paws, even at our old house, but we knew that we had to take some proactive steps before the wet season this year, especially with our bedroom as the main thoroughfare. We plan to soon have concrete poured underneath our canopy so that we will finally have a real patio but we also wanted to create a mud free pathway out to the stairs that lead to our goats... so we decided to do something that would eventually tie into the patio once it is done. Below are the before photos of the area we were working in.

First, we dug out and leveled (for the most part) the pathway, which was very hard work. Much of it was very hard dirt that James had to bust up with an ore first... we both got a ton of blisters after the long day of work.

Next, we threw down some weed barrier and got to lining the pathway. We brought home a huge truckload of large river rock that a friend was giving away... loading and unloading that was another rough task but we were super grateful to get all that great rock for free!

End of day one! We celebrated with wine and some one-on-one goat time...

The next load for old Darrell (our truck) was the pea gravel... we started with 2 cubic yards and that puppy was loaded down (you can sort of see all of the pressure on the tires in the picture below).

Spreading out the gravel was the easiest part of the whole process...

And here is the final product...

In the corner behind the dog pin is where we will start our veggie garden in the Spring!

Along the house, on the right,  I plan to grow a whole bunch of lavender!

While James was getting one more truckload of the pea gravel, I decided to spruce up the dog area a bit... here is the before...

And the after... we were planning on installing artificial grass in the rest of pen so that there would be no possibility of mud, but then we realized how expensive that was (which is ridiculously expensive). Sooo, we plan to put down bark instead and hopefully our pups dont decide to do any digging!

I am really excited to get our patio poured so that we can get some furniture and have a nice little sitting area... but next summer, it's on to create an awesome patio space! Until then though, it's hopefully going to be much less of a challenge keeping our pups and our floors clean!