Kombucha

For years I made kombucha. Vince liked it but then he stopped drinking it and making it just for me seemed like a waste and then when we knew we were moving, I stopped making it. From time to time, I’ve thought about making it again and hadn’t so last week, I ordered a new SCOBY/starter from Farmhouse Teas. Immediately I made tea and got the SCOBY in a jar and brewing. I didn’t remember that it takes 14 – 20 days for the first batch to be ready so . . I wait.

This site has some interesting recipes for flavoring the kombucha. I can’t wait to try the blueberry lemon! The fun part is that I can flavor each bottle differently. Let me do a little math . . the Growler bottles hold 16 oz. but I need to leave head space, plus whatever I put in for flavoring so I’m going to say 12 oz. of tea goes into each bottle. The tea gets brewed/fermented in a gallon jug, which is 128 oz. but I don’t fill it to the top. The SCOBY is in there, plus I have to keep out about 16 oz. to get the next batch going so let’s says I have about 90 to 100 oz. to pour into bottles. If my math is correct (stop laughing!), I should get about 8 bottles per batch.

In Texas, I had well water with no chlorine. Here, I have community water with sometimes a lot of chlorine. I can either use water through the fridge filter or run the water into a jar and let it sit overnight so hopefully the chlorine will evaporate out. Maybe I’ll boil the water the night before, let it sit all night and hopefully that will make it ok. I read the Consumer Confidence Report from our community’s water and it’s kinda over my head. Water was Vince’s area of expertise when he worked for environmental agencies so I’ll have him look at the report. He can tell me what I need to do. My preference is to put in a well but he isn’t going to do that.

I’ll share my experiences as I get back into the kombucha making routine.