How to get started: homebrewing kombucha
The following is the bare minimum you will need to get started homebrewing kombucha.
Ingredients
Directions
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil
Turn off the heat, wait 1 min, and then add your tea. Brew for 5-7 mins
Add the rest of the water to the glass jar
After the tea has been brewed, remove the tea bags or leaves, add sugar, and stir until dissolved.
Add this sweet tea mixture to the gallon jar
a. Ensure the thermometer reads 86 degrees F or below. If it is too hot it may damage or kill the starter tea
Add the SCOBY and starter tea
a. OR add the two bottles of raw commercial kombucha
That’s it! Now you just have to wait. Within a few days, you should start to see small air pocks forming near the top of the jar and a thin SCOBY start to form at the surface.
Ingredients
Directions
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil
Turn off the heat, wait 1 min, and then add your tea. Brew for 5-7 mins
Add the rest of the water to the glass jar
After the tea has been brewed, remove the tea bags or leaves, add sugar, and stir until dissolved.
Add this sweet tea mixture to the gallon jar
a. Ensure the thermometer reads 86 degrees F or below. If it is too hot it may damage or kill the starter tea
Add the SCOBY and starter tea
a. OR add the two bottles of raw commercial kombucha
That’s it! Now you just have to wait. Within a few days, you should start to see small air pocks forming near the top of the jar and a thin SCOBY start to form at the surface.
Notes
Tracking the brew and bottling
Kombucha is ready when it tastes like you want it to taste. Everyone has their own taste preference; some like it sweeter, and some like it more tart/sour/ acidic. You can start tasing your brew on day 7 and every 2-3 days from there to determine when you want to bottle.
It is perfectly safe to drink your kombucha raw and unflavored at this stage, but even a novice brewer will want to experiment with flavoring and second fermentation (F2). To do that you will need bottles suitable for kombucha. These flip-top style bottles and even recycled kombucha bottles work just fine. Although the flip-top style holds carbonation much better.
Add your favorite fruit juice, fruit puree, sliced fruit/ spices to your bottles. The amount you add will depend on a variety of factors including personal preferences and the strength of flavor, but a good rule of thumb is 1 tablespoon to ½ cup per 16 oz bottle. [lemon juice will be on the lower end of the spectrum, but orange juice may be on the higher end].
After you add your flavoring fill your bottle with kombucha, leaving about 2 inches of “headroom”.
Let it ferment at room temperature for an additional 2 – 4 days. [Lower end of the spectrum if the air temperature is 75 degrees or higher, and the higher end of the spectrum if the temperature is below 75 degrees]. When is done refrigerate the bottles, then enjoy!
Congrats! You have brewed your own kombucha. After you get the hang of this you can move on to some of the advanced brewing strategies.
The advanced homebrewer
Take your kombucha brewing skills up a level
Here are a few factors to consider to start to level up your kombucha brewing game.
Tea preparation
Experiment with tea
- You do want to ensure you are experimenting with other types of Camellia sinensis tea; Basically, these types of tea: black, green, oolong, and white. Different tea varieties do have different optimum brewing times so keep that in mind.
- Blend teas. Experiment with different ratios. Black tea will produce a bolder flavor, while green and white have a more subtle, lighter flavor profile.
Use loose leaf tea
- Loose leaf tea is typically higher quality than tea found in teabags.
- The difficulty with brewing loose leaf tea is that you need something to brew it in so the leaves don’t run loose in your brew. Many kits will come with a small cotton bag, but I quickly found that this was getting time-consuming and annoying to clean. That’s why I switched to this stainless steel tea infuser. Multiple infusers allow me to brew different tea types for different amounts of time, and cleaning is much easier and quicker.
First Fermentation
Maintain temperature
- You want to be able to continue brewing all year long, even when the temperature dips so you will want to buy a fermentation heater.
Temperature and light control
- You can wrap your brewing vessel with a towel to help maintain its temperature and limit the amount of light that reaches it. You can read more about how that is beneficial here.
Second Fermentation
Carbonation level
- Keep in mind that the longer your second ferment, the more CO2 gas will be produced and the more carbonation will be produced. However, this is dependent on the amount of sugar available to the yeast.
- Take into account how much sugar will be available to the yeast in your F2.
- Is your kombucha starting off very acidic?
- Does your flavoring have little to no natural sugar? (think ginger, lemon, raspberries)
- If you answered yes to either of these you may want to add sugar to your bottles to help feed the yeast to promote carbonation. Add 1 teaspoon per 16 oz bottle.
Flavoring
- Take these into consideration when deciding how much flavoring to add
- Are you using chopped fruit/herbs/ spices?
- The flavor will be more subtle, less bold
- Are you blending fruit/ herbs/ spices?
- The flavor will be strong
- Are you using premade fruit juice?
- The flavor will be moderate
- Are you juicing fresh fruit?
- The flavor will be very bold
- Are you using chopped fruit/herbs/ spices?
