How To Start Brewing Your Own Kombucha
Kombucha is a drink that has been sweeping the Western world for some time now despite being drank for a long time in Asia.
21/03/2019
What exactly is Kombucha? Well, it’s a fermented sweet tea that’s made with a culture of bacteria and yeast that work together referred to as a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). These bacteria and yeast make Kombucha’s distinctive flavor as well as function as probiotics, which is why the drink is recommended heavily by health conscious individuals. There’s a lot of positive health claims associated with Kombucha consumption, and one of the greatest things about it is that you can homebrew your own to suit your personal palette.
Here’s what needs to happen to get started in the Kombucha game:
Acquire All The Ingredients And Materials
There’s a few things you’ll need if you want to be able to actually call your end product Kombucha. Firstly, you’re going to need to get a mason jar to hold your Kombucha (although you might want to search around for the best bottles for Kombucha as some are vastly better than others) something to stir it with like a wooden spoon, a cloth or coffee filter to use as a strainer, and finally something to secure that strainer in place.
Once you have the materials, it’s time to get your ingredients. You need non chlorinated and non fluorinated water, some white sugar, a couple tea bags, your active SCOBY, and white vinegar.
Once you have all of these, Begin The Kombucha Process
Brewing the Kombucha is a relatively simple process and there’s little room for error. First, combine hot water and sugar into your selected receptacle. Stir until all the sugar has dissolved. As far as how hot the water needs to be, think hot enough to sip tea, boiling is a bit too far.
Next, add in the tea bags to the water. Now cool the mixture to around 70-80 degrees fahrenheit. Depending on how strong you want the tea to be, you can choose to either remove the tea bags after about 10-15 minutes or keep them in longer for a stronger tea.
Now remove the tea bags and add the distilled white vinegar to the mixture. Your SCOBY is ready to be added, so go right ahead and put that into the mixture as well.
The next step is to cover the jar with the cloth/coffee filter and secure it with a rubber band or similar elastic. Keep it out of direct sunlight and at a temperature between 70-80 degrees celsius for anywhere from 7-30 days. The less time you let it ferment, the sweeter the end result will be.
Now simply pour all of the Kombucha into a receptacle you can store it in. It’s important that you keep the SCOBY and a little bit of Kombucha in the jar if you plan on making another batch.
There you have it, your very own home brewed Kombucha tea. It’s up to you if you want to add more flavoring agents and it’ll probably take a few batches before you find your perfect taste. Drink up!