Hi Neighbour,
I hope you enjoyed our Best Easter Sunday in years! I was reveling in being outside on a bright, sunny and warm day!
So today, I’d like to introduce you to Homemade Kombucha. If you don’t know what that is, well, it’s tea, fermented to create a tasty, effervescent drink for 1/10 of the cost of store-bought kombucha. When I began making kombucha, a friend gave me a SCOBY, a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, which is essential to the process. Email admin@gbrra.org to receive my extra one.
Here’s my recipe:
Ingredients/tools:
- 1 large, gallon (4 L) wide-necked, glass jar — I call it an industrial-sized pickle jar — without a lid.
- Tea: 1-2 Tbsp Kenyan black loose or 2-3 teabags – any black, non-flavoured tea.
- Sugar: 1 cup white or cane, per 1 gallon of water
- 1 round, basket, paper, coffee filter + elastic band, to fit around the wide neck.
- 1 SCOBY, a.k.a., “mother” or “mushroom”. [“Mother” will naturally occur in vinegar products as the result of the vinegar bacteria itself. It’s actually cellulose (a natural carbohydrate which is in the fibre in foods like celery and lettuce) produced by the harmless vinegar bacteria. Mother is not harmful; it’s healthy for you.]
- 1 wide-necked canning jar to keep your SCOBY between batches — called a ‘SCOBY hotel’.
- 4 brown, swing-top, 1-L beer bottles for the second ferment. (See photo of equipment.)
- (Optional) 1 Tbsp of unfiltered, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar per liter of kombucha, before the second ferment.
- Other equipment (see photo). You only really need to strain the tea leaves out. If looks matter, do more.
Instructions:
Brew tea, then strain it into the gallon jar. Add sugar (not honey) and stir to dissolve. Add cold water to fill jar up to the neck. Add SCOBY, which may float near the top of the liquid, or it may sink to the bottom — no problem. Cover jar with filter + elastic band, to prevent anything from getting into liquid, and put it in a dark place. There isn’t a strict method to this, or I wouldn’t have done it for the past 7 years. SCOBY’s are very forgiving & resilient, and they grow with each batch. You can use the coffee filter multiple times. Leave your kombucha to ferment for 7–30 days, depending on your taste preferences. Use a straw to taste it, whenever you want. When you’re ready, remove the SCOBY and drink your kombucha, or put it into swing-top bottles for a second ferment. That’s when the carbonation (fizz) develops, esp. with added apple cider vinegar. After a week, open one of the bottles to see how fizzy it is and again a week later. It could surprise you, so do it over the sink, with a container to protect from an ‘eruption’, just in case…! Add flavour, start another batch or put your scoby in a ‘hotel’ until later. Questions? Look on YouTube…!
Enjoy,
Fiona
