1. Start with clean utensils and equipment.
You will need:
A large pot to boil sugar and water and also steep the tea.
A glass gallon or half gallon jar - this is where your kombucha will brew
1 Cup sugar - I use pure organic cane sugar but you can use brown sugar as well.
5-7 tea bags - green, black, white, or jasmine. This is your personal preference but whole leaf teas only.
3 quarts filtered water
1 SCOBY and 1 cup of starter tea
2. Bring 3 quarts of purified water to a boil.
3. While water just reaches a boil, add 1 cup of sugar and boil for 5 minutes, stir occasionally.
4. Turn off heat. Add 5-7 tea bags. You can use black or green or both at the same time. Just no herbal teas or teas that contain oils. Pure leaf teas are ideal for the bacteria and yeasts to thrive.
5. Steep for 15 minutes. Allow the sweetened tea to cool. I like to leave the tea bags in during this process so it will end up being longer than 15 minutes which is ok.. Once cooled, or no longer hot to the touch you can pour it into a gallon glass jar.
6. Add the SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeasts) making sure the smooth shiny surface faces up. Also add the starter tea. This is the liquid the SCOBY came with. Starter tea is another name for kombucha. It is from a previous batch. You always save one cup of kombucha (starter tea) for the next batch.
7. Place a cloth over the opening and secure with a rubber band. At this point I find it very helpful to put the date somewhere on the jar with a pice of tape or some kind of sticker. I have many gallons brewing at once so it's good to know the date that each one started.
8. Allow the jar to sit undisturbed in a well ventilated place. Some place out of direct sunlight would be ideal. The temperature range should be between 65-85 degrees. This process will take about 6-14 days depending on the temperature of the room.
9. After about a week you should notice that the SCOBY has grown to cover the surface area of the opening of the jar. This is good and so cool to see! You may also notice some bubbles forming just below the SCOBY and some stringy formations growing down from the SCOBY. Also very good signs that the bacteria and yeasts are actively consuming the sugars and changing the make-up of the sweet tea into kombucha.
Place a spoon in the jar and move the SCOBY over a little to grab a taste test. If it is still very sweet then it needs more time. The sugar is not in there for you to consume rather it is what the beneficial and yeasts feed on to create the probiotics. After the first week, taste it every other day. After your first batch you will have more of an idea of how long it takes to brew in your kitchen. The kombucha is ready when it is not sweet, but not vinegar tasting. It should taste like a very slightly sweet/tart sparkling apple cider drink. If it brews for too long, no worries that just means you made vinegar and can be used in any recipes that require vinegar so don’t throw it away! It makes a great salad dressing addition or meat tenderizer. You can also still use this as a starter tea for the first batch, it did not go bad.
Repeat this process for the next batch making sure to preserve 1 cup of the kombucha as the starter tea for the next batch. Enjoy!
I love your newsletters. My husband dropped 15 pounds and just loves the Kombucha with ginger. He thinks it's "ginger-ale something" but I know it's a high probiotic healing elixir. Thanks Jen for this valuable information every week! Can't wait until next Sunday!
We have been making Kombucha for over two years now. We are starting to get a little more creative. This week we added lemongrass and mint - delicious. Keep doing what you are doing Jen! Trying the whipped cream tomorrow. And once you make the sour cream you will never go back to buying it!