I know I'm a busy mama who has little time for the intricacies of new projects. And I know I'm not the only mama out there who feels the same way. Between keeping the house tidy, keeping your family fed and nourished, and running after any little rug rats, who has time to waste on things like the delicate dance of yeasts and bacteria? Well now you will!
When I originally learned how to brew Kombucha, I killed the Mother/SCOBY, I couldn't figure out how long to wait till it was ready, and I grew things other than the yeasts and bacteria that make your Kombucha healthy and drinkable. But I learned something out of all of this! The Lazy/Busy Mama's Brewing Method aka the "continuous brewing method," with a few special tweaks of my own.
Supplies you will need:
1. A seedling mat
2. A gallon-sized glass jar
3. Green tea & black tea (I use loose tea)
4. Sugar
5. Purified/filtered water
6. A fine mesh strainer
7. A SCOBY and some starter tea
8. A large pot to boil the water in
9. Wax paper
First thing you want to do is sterilize your jar. I'm lazy so I washed it with soap and scaldingly hot water. Perfect! :)
Then you need to brew your "feeder tea." This is the "food" you will be giving your SCOBY, or as I like to call her, your "Mother." She needs tea (Camellia sinensis, no other will do) and sugar to thrive. I have found that plain white organic sugar is best, though often because of finances, it's just plain white C&H sugar. The good news is that your Kombucha will be fine even if it's not organic. As much as I hate to say that....
The recipe I use is:
1 gallon purified/filtered water
2 tsp loose green tea (or 4 tea bags)
2 tsp loose black tea (or 4 tea bags)
1 cup sugar
Do NOT use honey as the antibacterial goodness of honey will harm your "Mother."
To begin, you will need to bring to almost a boil, a gallon of filtered/purified water. We have a Berkey purifier which I am totally in LOVE with. Heck, even the Queen of England uses it! Here's ours....
I do not boil it due to wanting to keep the maximum amount of oxygen in it. If you are not using filtered water, you WILL want to boil it to remove and chlorine and things like that.
Once it is to that point, turn off the burner, and add a cup of sugar and your tea in a tea-ball. Or if you're me, I put the sugar in right when I put it on the burner. And I add the tea after I shut off the burner later, once it has gotten to the almost boiling point.
Here are my gallons of currently brewing Kombucha:
As you can see, I brew two gallons at once. When I "harvest" my Kombucha, I get two quarts per gallon. So 4 quarts of yumminess! If you're brewing one gallon, you will get 2 quarts (about every 3 days).
Okay, so back to the process....
Next you have to let the "feeder tea" cool. I do this the lazy/busy mama's way, which is to forget about it and occasionally check it until I can easily put my finger into it and it feel only warm. Then I take out the tea ball. Yes, I have forgotten it till the following day. No harm no foul.
Since you do not have a set-up yet from which to harvest and do a second ferment, we will start there. Later we will discuss what to do once you have an active brew and are ready to harvest your first batch of Kombucha.
So now, take your new "Mother" and your starter Kombucha and put them into the jar. Some people like to put the tea in first, then the Kombucha, then place the "Mother" gently on top so as to not harm the mother. Not me. The reality is that your Kombucha will always grow a new "Mother" as long as the pH of your brew is awesome for it. I never worry about tossing the "mother" around in the jar and upsetting her. In fact, if you get a "Mother" from me, it will often be squeezed into a quart jar. Just plop her into your gallon jar. Add the starter Kombucha, then fill up the rest of the jar with the strained feeder tea. You strain it to make sure you don't have any tea particles in it.
You will have some feeder tea left. Put that in a jar in the fridge to use when you need it next time.
Do not fill the jar up to the top. Instead leave an inch or two room for the "Mother" and the fermenting process. Look at the above picture to see what I mean....
Then put your jar onto a hand towel which is placed on your Seedling Mat. I got mine from our local hydroponics store. You can also buy one on online. I put a towel down to help displace the direct heat, and just radiate a general warmth all over.
The awesome thing about this mat is that it keeps your Kombucha at the exact temperature you need to make sure that ONLY the right yeasts and bacterias grow. If it gets too cold, you will grow bad things! This way I never have to think about if it's growing what it's supposed to! If you live in a super warm climate, you may not seed a mat. The Kombucha needs to stay at 75-85 degrees basically, with probably 80-85 being it's happiest point.
Once your "Mother" is strong and happy, you will probably find your brew will be ready every 3-4 days. But in the beginning, it may take as long as a week to be ready. You need to taste it after the 3rd day, every day, to know if it's at the point you like it. It should be effervescent and slightly tangy like vinegar, but WAY yummier. If it's sweet and tea-like, it needs to brew longer. (If it's super vinegary, it brewed too long. No worries, just put it into a second ferment to see if it mellows out. You haven't harmed anything.)
You will also notice a whitish film growing on top. This is your new "mother."
I use a long straw to taste my brew. I suck some up into the chamber, then withdraw it from the Kombucha, and taste.
If it's the way you want it, you get to harvest!! Yay!
To "harvest" your Kombucha, you need to brew some feeder tea again for when you need to refill the jar. And then what I do is pour off 2 quarts of freshly brewed Kombucha. This will leave about 1/3 to 1/2 the gallon jar still full of the brew. This will be the starter tea for your next brew, which will ensure the right pH.
When you pour the Kombucha out of the gallon jar, you should notice it fizzing and it's effervescence. If you do not, it may not have been ready.
Do not worry about pouring and upsetting the newly forming "Mother." Once your pour your new feeder tea onto the "Mother," she will probably swirl around the jar. It's okay. The "mother" does not need to be perfect. What needs to be perfect is the pH of the brew. And THAT is why we leave so much of the original brew in the jar for the next time around. You are assuring that the pH is always good.
Occasionally (about every month or so) I take everything out and clean the jar. That's just me. Sometimes I wait even longer. As long as you don't introduce any new bacteria, and keep the pH happy, you probably don't even have to clean the jar. I just choose to for protection sake.
So this is how you do the continuous brew method! You do not have to take anything out of the jar other than the Kombucha you are harvesting. Then just add back in new feeder tea. It's that simple! Really! Eventually the "Mother" will thicken up and be totally un-phased by your abuse of pouring etc. Eventually you will need to share some of your "Mother" with someone else because she will be too healthy and fat. As you can see, one of my "Mothers" is getting a bit chunky, so I am going to split her apart and share her with someone else who wants to brew.
Splitting the "Mother" is easy. Wash your hands, stick one in the jar and pull out the "Mother." Either pull apart some of her layers, or cut her in half. No you are not going to harm her, and she is not going to scream in agony over your abuse. I generally keep the newer layers, and pass the older ones. They are still good and the old layers will make a perfectly new "Mother" for your friend. :)
Here are some bottles I poured that are now ready for their "Second Ferment."
The second ferment is fun because here is where you get to play! You can add almost anything to your second ferment brew. My favorite is fresh berries, or fresh mint. I have tried ginger slices too. You are only limited by your imagination!
Here is my mint in one jar, and my blackberry in the other. YUM!
Don't forget to put wax paper between the brew and the lid. You do not want your Kombucha touching metal for a long period of time, due to it's ability to leach in the metals and become toxic to you. And always brew in glass!
Once your second brew has done it's thing for 24-48 hours, it's ready to drink! Actually you could just drink the freshly brewed Kombucha after the first ferment, which I often do, but I also love the flavors of the second ferment. And if you're concerned about the content of the sugar or tea, a second ferment is the way to go. The bacteria & yeasts will gobble up all of the sugar and tea by then, and just leave you with healthy yumminess!
You will find doing berries is a trip because after the 24-48 hours, the berries have whitened, and the brew is the color of the berries. It's like a science experiment!
I always use my strainer (yes, it's metal, but I only use it so briefly that I doubt it matters) to strain all my Kombucha when I'm pouring into my cup, because you will find that Kombucha naturally wants to make more "Mothers" and you do NOT want to be drinking your beverage and nearly choke on that globby thing. Yuck! Trust me, I've done it. Not to mention, you have to strain everything you added to it. You may even find that the new SCOBY has adhered to the items you put into it, and you can extract it all in one glob.
There! Now you can brew Kombucha the easy and painless method! Feel free to ask questions if you have any. I'm sure I've forgotten some nuance somewhere....
ENJOY!!!
This has been cross-posted on Kelly the Kitchen Kops' Real Food Wednesday
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