how to brew kombucha

kombucha tea. here at the farm we like to brew our own kombucha tea. it is really quite easy and we love the taste of our home brewed kombucha. this is how to make a gallon.

assemble all of your equipment, all of it needs to be sanitized as well as your work area. you don't want to contaminate your kombucha. you need a large pot, measuring cups, large spoon, strainer if desired, one gallon glass (non reactive) container for brewing and your ingredients, tea bags or loose tea, i use 8 tea bags, 1 - 1 1/2 cups of real cane sugar, organic please and your scoby (this stands for symbionic colony of bacteria and yeast) and a piece of paper towel or tight weave fabric and rubber band to cover your container. also, with your first batch you will also need 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar which will adjust the ph.

bring to a boil a half gallon of spring or filtered water, no chlorine please

turn off the burner. add 8 tea bags, your choice of black, white or green or use tea leaves. make a strong tea. you will be diluting it. after it has steeped for 10 minutes or so, remove the tea bags or strain out the loose tea and add your sugar. stir until it has dissolved. then add 2 cups of cold spring water. this will help speed along the cooling process. pour the sweetened tea into your sanitized gallon jar. you can put your glass jar in a cool water bath to bring down the temperature after it has cooled a little. .

check the temperature. you want to cool it to 86 degrees (f) before you add the scoby.

add your scoby, gently, along with the kombucha that is with the scoby, 1-2 cups, and top off with aprox 86 degree water until your container is full.

cover the jar with your paper towel and rubber band. leave your kombucha, undisturbed, out of direct sunlight. this is when fermentation takes place. wait 4-7 days before checking. you want it to be tart only slightly sweet and slightly bubbly. test a sample with a straw. (gently insert the straw around the scoby into the tea. put your finger over the top of the straw and pull the straw out. taste the little bit of kombucha from the straw) sometimes it takes longer, depending on different factors like the temperature.

when the kombucha ready to bottle, and tastes tart and slightly sweet, gently remove the scoby, and place in a dish of kombucha tea. (save this while you start your next batch)

you can if you want, filter or strain the kombucha before you bottle it. i like to strain mine. notice the bubbles from the carbonation.

now you are ready to refrigerate your kombucha or leave it at room temperature for a day or two for secondary fermentation, which will make it bubblier, then refrigerate. for secondary fermentation some people like to bottle theirs in plastic bottles so they can tell how much it has fermented, (plastic bottles becomes quite hard from the carbonation and there is no risk of exploding glass bottles.) enjoy!