Home Brewed Kombucha

[J-Melt]

A friend of mine gave me a SCOBY, so I am now jumping into another culinary version of hurry up and wait! Anyone else do kombucha at home and have any pro-tips?

[jasonwilliams14]

I do Kombucha pretty often. I need to get a new SCOBY for the upcoming warming time which makes it easy to ferment.

One thing I would say is invest in really good bottles that seal very well. That will really help with the "fuzz" and makes it taste better. That being said, be careful when opening! They can explode with the carbonation making quite a mess!

[acorgihouse]

I used to make it regularly, but stopped a couple years ago as things intervened. I like it, and have just been getting prepared to start it again. I stopped because I was having stomach issues, and the "vinegar-ness" of kombucha irritated. I'm ready to start again, and just got a scoby that is lying here on the counter in a plastic bag It's quite easy, at least the production, I've always made it in a gallon Mason jar. Like jasonwilliams14 said above, if you are going to bottle it, whether you do a second ferment or not, make sure you are using good quality bottles. I bought a case of those brown beer bottles from my local brew store, and I have a bottle capper, but just having good solid bottles with good lids or caps is fine. I like to do a second ferment with some kind of berries, but the nice thing is you can vary however you want. I store in garage fridge, and have only had maybe one explosion in several years. You can get scobys from lots of sources, amazon, etc, and www.culturesforhealth.com, a site I like a lot. My local brew store has kombucha on tap, and there is a group that meets there once a week to trade and sample beers, wines, and other things, and there is some free sharing of skobys and starters. I haven't been there in some time, but I think it is still a thing.

[radshop]

I used to make it. I'm pretty sure my fermentation jar and bail-top beer bottles are still in the garage loft. (I recommend those, and the cheapest way to get them is to buy Groslch beer. It's actually cheaper than buying the bottles alone - or at least was 15 years ago.) I like kombucha, but nobody else in my family was drinking it, so it wasn't really worth the effort for me at some point.

[J-Melt]

Thank you! How do y’all keep the area where it is brewing warm? My house gets held at 63 degrees overnight, so I imagine that would slow down fermentation significantly. I don’t know that I want to run a space heater all the time, but maybe that is what I will have to do until we hit later spring/summer.

[acorgihouse]

Warm is normally not an issue here. I live in Tampa, AKA Hell's back porch for ~362 days of the year. If I put on windowsill, it would boil. I have a friend who makes it, though, who lives in more northern clime. She uses window sun, and wraps bath or beach towels around her kombucha vat when needed.

[J-Melt]

It is now brewing. We shall see what happens!