Making kombucha: Like vinegar, but more low-key?
Sunset’s editors have been lately spotted toting bottles of kombucha, fermented
tea sold at Whole Foods Markets and natural foods stores. (So you’re
not surprised if you try it: It smells like vinegar, but get past that
and it’s tasty. Plus, it has an aura of good health.) However, at $4 a
bottle, I’m drinking away my salary.
Which is why I was excited to read
on the ApartmentTherapy blog Re-Nest that you can make your own. From reading their description, it’s less complicated than making vinegar; it only takes 10 days from putting a batch together to drinking a batch you made yourself.
Now all I need is a “scoby,” a symbiotic culture of bacteria and
yeast that works like the mother in vinegar-making. Oh, no, wait: Thank goodness for
the Internet. According to the Love Your Mother blog (love the name), I can make my own.
Any DIY-kombucha drinkers out there? I’d love to hear about your experiences.
by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher
We’ve been making the ‘booch at home for a few months now, after we too realized we were drinking away our salaries. We started with a SCOBY from a friend, fed it disgustingly sweet herbal tea, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since! For a while I was bottling my brew and letting it sit for about a week in hopes of getting it bubbly and carbonated like GT’s. It gets a little bubbly, but not as effervescent as the store-bought (a trade off for saving so much cash, I reckon.)
It anyone is interested in brewing their own, I highly recommend it. You can probably find someone with a SCOBY by asking people at the health food store or talking to folks in your local slow-food movement. As far as growing a SCOBY from the tea, I’ve never done it on purpose, but I’ve left half-drinken bottles of kombucha on the counter for a couple days and noticed little SCOBY’s forming.
I do the continuous-brewing process in a large 3-gallon dispenser with a spigot. I just add more sugary tea whenever it gets depleted. I’ve shared some with friends, and most claim to have liked better than the commercial stuff.
I attempted to grow my own scoby from commercial bottles… didn’t work, so I broke down and bought two scobies from an Ebay seller with a good rep… those worked great and I have already made a couple of batches… There are people whom will send you “free” scobies… but with their $10 shipping, going through the ebay seller was the better option.
Am a Gingerade Kombucha drinker. Have not made it myself but a friend of mine is in the process of making a huge batch of her own.