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Saturday, December 26, 2015

Kombucha

I tried and tried to grow my own kombucha mother / SCOBY from bottles of bought kombucha. But nothing worked. They didn't go wrong or go gross, just nothing grew. I asked around and noone knew of anyone making it. At last it arrived, from an unexpected source - S's PhD student has a friend doing some food science study with kombucha. So she got some mother for herself from her friend, and once it was big and strong enough she gave me some. Huzzah!

I started it nearly 2 weeks ago, on sweet Earl Grey tea. My first harvest was yesterday, after 12 days. The new mother was about 3 mm thick, and the kombucha was a little sweeter and less fizzy than I would have liked, but not too vinegary and really very good. Very pleased indeed!

You will need:
Large jar with wide mouth (ideally wide enough to fit your hand in)
Clean cloth to cover top of jar (clean tea towel is a good weave)
Rubber band to secure cloth
Bottle with lid to store kombucha after it is made
Jug or funnel to help with pouring kombucha into jars etc

Enough freshly-brewed black or green tea to fill the jar (mine holds about 1.5 litres; I used Earl Grey)
Sugar (about 5 tbsp for 1.5 litres)
about half a cup of kombucha from the previous batch
SCOBY

Method:
Do your best to keep everything clean and sterile - wash glassware in the dishwasher if you have one; dry upside down in a 110C oven; use while hottish.

Make the tea and let it cool to anywhere between room and body temperature. Add the sugar and stir until it is completely dissolved. Mix in the kombucha from the previous batch, then transfer the liquid to the large jar. Add the SCOBY. Cover with the cloth and secure with a rubber band. Leave at room temperature for 1-2 weeks. Remove a little with a spoon to test after a week and again later if not yet ready, but do not open too often to avoid contamination.

When the kombucha smells and tastes good (ie slightly vinegary and sour but not off), you are ready to harvest it. Remove the SCOBY and transfer to a bowl along with about half a cup of kombucha. If you do not want to make another batch immediately you can cover this and keep in the fridge for weeks. Pour the rest of the kombucha into a bottle, cover and store in the fridge - it is ready to drink!

Start another batch as before. If you don't want to make more kombucha right away you can store the SCOBY in some kombucha in a sealed container in the fridge until you do.

You can use any kind of green or black tea (or mixtures), and flavours such as ginger juice can be added when bottling. I am yet to experiment with adding flavours, and also with tweaking the recipe to optimize fizziness and sweet/sour balance - watch this space!
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