Tag Archives: SCOBY

Kombucha Recipe

We can all thank the Angelfish for giving me a reason to post this 🙂

The following recipe is for 1 gallon of ‘buch. It can be halved/doubled etc. to match your needs. All cooking times stay the same.

You will need:

Kombucha Brewing
Kombucha Brewing

2 quart pot
1 gallon of good water
1 cup sugar, organic unrefined preferred
1 SCOBY (AKA the Mother… a Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast)
1 cup starter tea
8 oolong, green or black tea bags
1 g glass jar. NO METAL!
1 piece of cotton cloth or paper towel. Holes in cheesecloth are too large, if using cheesecloth use at least 3 layers.
1 rubber band

Procedure:
Clean hands and all utensils with distilled vinegar after washing with NON-Antibacterial Soap.
Bring 4 cups of water and sugar to a boil.
Once boiling add the teabags, count to ten, then remove the pot from heat source.
Put the lid on the pot (leaving tea bags in) and wait for 5 mintues.
After 5 minutes remove the lid and add some water to fill up the pot.
Wait 5 more minutes.

SCOBY Farm!
SCOBY Farm!

Remove tea bags and squeeze them out. Let this “sweet-tea” sit and cool off for at least 20 minutes. Ideally temp should be below 110 degrees Fahrenheit before continuing.
Put SCOBY and starter tea in brewing jar. Pour sweet-tea into jar. Fill remaining space with water up to 1.5-2 inches from top of jar. Stir with WOODEN or PLASTIC spoon.
Cover jar with cloth and secure cloth with rubber band. Put jar in cool dark place (pantry or cupboard). Do not disturb jar while fermenting.

In a few days a new SCOBY will start to form on the top of the tea. After about a week start tasting your brew using a wooden or plastic spoon. When you like the flavor, you are done! Bottle it up and enjoy. Google for more recipes and flavoring ideas.

Baby SCOBYs
I got SCOBYs, who wants one???

NOTES:
Never expose SCOBY or ‘butch to direct sunlight.
Never expose brew to any type of metal.
When you first start brewing, there will be more yeast than usual.

It’s brown and gross looking. This is normal. Unless your SCOBY is super fuzzy everything is probably normal. As your SCOBY adjusts to it’s new environment it will get whiter and produce less yeast strands.
After brewing is finished, the new SCOBY can be separated from the old to start a new batch, make additional batches, give to a friend, make bio-pleather, etc.

After the first harvest, bottle all but a cup or two of the brew and just pour some new sweet tea in the jar and brew it.