Making Your Own Kombucha - Special Post from Guest Writer Brett Vandermolen

We had some wonderful responses to our posting about making kombucha culture from the bottle. There have been some amazing online conversations, mostly on Facebook, that have been educational and informative to all. Most of these conversations were led by our dear friend Brett Vandermolen who at this point has enough kombucha to send everybody who comes to this site a bottle! We asked him to write up a post for the blog, and he sent us this gem of an article. Totally puts my kombucha piece to shame! I especially enjoy the bit about how to bottle it for carbonation. Thanks Brett for sharing!!! - Clare

Before I delve too far into the subject, some of you might be wondering what is kombucha? Kombucha is a fermented tea with a unique taste and many health benefits. Making your own kombucha is relatively easy. Almost everything you need to make your kombucha can be bought at your local grocery store. There is however one thing you cannot get there, a SCOBY. SCOBY stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. Some people call it the Kombucha Mother, or Mushroom. There are two ways to get a SCOBY, finding one already grown (getting it from a friend, getting one from craigslist, etc…), or growing one yourself. There are benefits to both. If you get one from another person you’re going to save a lot of time (it takes about a month to grow one yourself). If you grow one yourself you’ll know it is of good quality and not made from inferior ingredients or from a weak culture. The other things you’ll need are: A glass jar or bowl, a cloth, a rubber band, pure water, tea, sugar, and some already brewed kombucha.

There are actually a lot of variables that involve all of the ingredients you need to brew kombucha. I've already talked a bit about the SCOBY, and I’ll talk more about how to grow one later, so I’ll start with the container. The container you make your kombucha in needs to be glass or ceramic. In my opinion glass is the best choice. Ceramic containers can leach things into the kombucha and make it toxic. Unleaded Glass Jars or containers are a sure thing. Whatever you do, don’t use a metal or plastic container, they’ll leach things into your brew or completely prevent the culture from growing all together. A wide mouth glass jar is your best choice. The SCOBY grows on the surface of the liquid and needs to be a healthy width and circumference. If you use a bottle necked glass jar or a bowl that’s too wide, the SCOBY might turn out to be either not wide enough or too thin. You’ll also need some sort of a cloth to cover the top of the vessel you’re brewing your kombucha in. An exchange of gas needs to occur in the brewing process because of the fermentation that is going on, so the top of your container cannot be completely sealed off, but can’t be left completely open either. If left completely open unwanted bacteria can enter your brew and ruin it by growing mold. Above I mentioned a rubber band. It’s a good choice as a way to get a good seal around the cloth covering your container. Of course, if you have some extra string or something lying around, why not use something you have for free. The water you use needs to be pure. Tap water contains chlorine that will kill the kombucha, so obviously it’s a bad choice. I personally buy jugs of purified water from the store. The tea you use needs to be an oil free black or green tea. Traditionally it was made with black tea, and the tannic acid from black tea helps the kombucha to grow as well. I personally do a mixture of black and green teas. You’ll also need to decide if you want your tea to be organic or not, mine is. Sugar is needed to provide the “food” for your SCOBY to eat. There is actually a big debate on what kind of sugar to use. Some people use raw and organic sugars for good reason, and some people use cheap processed sugar because the kombucha can “eat” it more easily. I use organic turbinado sugar. It’s still organic, but slightly processed making it easier for the kombucha to use. When all of the above listed things are in place you’ll also need to add one or two cups of already brewed kombucha to the mixture to make it properly acidic. This will create an environment where the kombucha can thrive and mold cannot grow.

Growing your own SCOBY does take some time and delay the brewing process, but its fun. You get to watch the process from the very beginning and have an added feeling of self-sufficiency. Here is how it’s done… First you need to select a high quality bottle of plain kombucha that has a fair amount of the yeasty filaments and sediment inside. In a saucepan boil one cup of water and dissolve two tablespoons of sugar into it. Next you’ll add one tea bag or one tablespoon of loose-leaf tea and allow some time for it to steep. When the mixture has cooled to room temperature remove the tea bags or leaves. Add this sweetened tea and your bottle of kombucha to a quart jar and cover it with a cloth sealed with a rubber band or string. Place this in a warm dark space and allow it some time to grow. In just a couple of days you’ll notice a thin film beginning to grow on the surface of the liquid. This is the beginning of the SCOBY. When it reaches a thickness of about an eighth of an inch its time to give it a boost. Next you’ll need to boil four cups of water, dissolve one third of a cup of sugar into it, and steep two tea bags. When this cools to room temp add it to a one-gallon glass jar (this will be your typical vessel size for the recipe I give, so it’ll be good to have one on hand). Dump the first kombucha mixture with the SCOBY and all into it, cover it and place it in a warm dark place. Over the next two weeks the SCOBY will thicken considerably. When it reaches a thickness between one quarter to one half inches it’ll be ready to brew your first batch of kombucha. Keep in mind that if at any point during this process mold appears you’ll need to discard everything and start over from the beginning. Mold will be green or white. Brown spots are just the yeast. If the mixture is properly acidic this shouldn't even be possible. This process takes about one month. The warmer the temperature the kombucha is stored in, the faster the process will be. I have a friend who uses a small “kombucha greenhouse” that keeps it at about ninety degrees and speeds up the process considerably.

Once you have a SCOBY, brewing the kombucha is relatively easy. First you’ll need to boil three quarts (12 cups) of water and dissolve one cup of sugar into it. Then you’ll need to steep four tea bags or four tablespoons of loose-leaf tea in it. When this cools to room temperature remove the tea leafs, pour it into a one-gallon glass jar, add one or two cups of finished kombucha tea, and place the SCOBY on top. It is okay if it sinks. Add a cloth onto the top of the jar and secure it with a rubber band. Place this in a warm dark place. After about one week to ten days it should be done brewing. You’ll notice a new SCOBY has grown on the surface of the liquid, so now you can brew two batches instead of just one. The new SCOBY may be stuck to the old one and you may need to separate them from each other in order to have two separate cultures. It’s important to keep in mind that everything needs to be sterile in this process, including your hands when touching the SCOBY. I wash every implement that’s involved in the brewing process and rinse it with boiling water, and wash my hands really well with soap and water. Don’t use hand sanitizer. This stays on your hands and will probably kill the kombucha and that would be really sad.

I would recommend when you’re starting to use a simple (not raw) sugar and black tea. This is what most major brands are made from and what your SCOBY will be used to. Once you’ve successfully made a batch or two you can begin experimenting with different teas, sugars, and flavors. Adding fruit juices, honey, or ginger are all popular and yummy ways to add the spice of life to your kombucha (variety) If you want your kombucha to have carbonation like the stuff you buy at the store, bottle it, cap it, and leave it at room temp for about three or five days. Since the liquid is still brewing when its left at room temp the gas exchange will still be happening. If you cap your bottles that gas is trapped inside and turns into your carbonation. After the three or five days you’ll want to put these bottles into your refrigerator to stop the carbonation process. If you leave them at room temp for too long when you go to open them they will explode and you and everything around you will smell like kombucha for a while. Some people store the finished product in quart glass jars and immediately place them in the refrigerator to keep them uncarbonated. I know some people who mix the kombucha with fruit juices at a 50/50 mixture and say its pretty tasty. Some people mix it with hot water and honey. Like I said earlier, EXPEREMENT, be creative, have fun, live, laugh, love, and share your kombucha with others. There are a lot of recipes for brewing kombucha other than the one I offered. There is also a lot of information out there on the health benefits of kombucha. I encourage you to go out there and research as much as you can. Good Luck.

Veni Vini Vino

I am pleased to report that I have been featured as a guest writer on a friends' blog that focuses on the wines of this lovely region - The Oregon Wine Blog. When Jason and I were down in Jacksonville visiting House Alive, we stopped in at a local wine cellar, picked up a bottle of wine, and eventually I wrote up a nice review. If you have a few minutes check it out - support another amazing blog out there!

I thought that I'd put together a simple bit explaining what makes a wine organic. Often in liquor stores (and more often in food co-ops) we will see areas designated "organic wine," but the term "organic" is often so overused that it often becomes meaningless beyond green packaging and Pollanesque supermarket pastoral. I will admit that I have not really spent time figuring it out (I generally go for local first, organic second when it comes to wine).

For starters, there needs to be an acknowledgment that along with confusion around what it means to be "organic" in our supermarkets, each country in the world has a different standard. This is important to think about when dealing with wine seeing as so much of the wine in this country is imported (other food as well). What is agreed upon across the board is that the way the grapes are grown is very important. There should be no pesticides or chemicals and all other methods of growing need to be earth-friendly.

Where things start to become hazy is the position on sulfites. Sulfites are a naturally-occurring product of fermentation, and an excellent wine preservative. However, because many people are allergic to them, in order to be considered an organic wine there can be no added sulfites. This is the US standard, so if you have a sulfite allergy be sure that the organic wine you are about to drink is domestic. That said, there is no such thing as a completely sulfite-free wine.

At Semi-Urban Homesteader (as stated earlier) we aim to make our purchases from local businesses first, organic businesses second. With fresh meats and produce we find that the two are the same, but with wine this is not always the case. Our choice is to keep money local, support family businesses, and avoid using oil through shorter shipping routes. We count ourselves lucky that when it comes to wine we are able to enjoy the bounty of the Willamette Valley - a sentiment our friends at The Oregon Wine Blog share with us!

Kefir Delight

I love yogurt. I think it is delicious. I drink it, spoon it, spread it, and cook with it. While Jason was purchasing his homebrewing supplies (I hope to get him on here to write about THAT) I browsed the back half of the Corvallis Brewing Supply looking at wine making supplies, bulk brewing containers, and books. I happened to peek into the fridge with the yeast and saw that besides beer and wine supplies, they offered cultures and the like to make cheese, yogurt, and kefir.

Now I had no idea what kefir was. I had seen it in the dairy cases of my grocery stores, but kind of wrote it off as some kind of hippie health food (yep - laugh at the fact that it was ME thinking that). What I will say is that I really really really really really wanted to learn how to make cheese. When I investigated one of the cheesemaking books on the shelves I learned of a graduated process toward the chemistry of cheese that allowed one to learn just a couple of skills at a time.

And it started by making kefir.

First I had to learn what kefir was. What I have learned is that kefir comes from Turkey and is a means of fermenting milk. The end result is a sour, thick mixture that is similar in taste to yogurt, but contains different nutrients. Once I learned this I became intrigued and decided to give it a try.

The only thing I had to do to make my kefir was to bring my milk (I used 1% organic milk, but you can do it with most kinds including coconut and soy) to a certain temperature and add the kefir culture. I then poured the milk into jars, covered them with a cloth, and set them on the kitchen counter to ferment. If i wanted it to take longer I could put it in the fridge, but I wanted my kefir ASAP.

The end result of my first batch was a thick milky substance similar to pourable yogurt. It was sour enough to make me want a BIT of added sweetness - fruit for example - but had a pleasant tang like eating plain yogurt. I took two jars, added to them some canned apricots I brought from Moab, and began eating it every morning with fruit and Kashi. The rest I left in a larger jar in the back of the fridge to keep fermenting - albeit more slowly.

The one thing that confused me about the kefir was that all reports I got on it included the fact that I needed to strain out the "kefir grains," or the culture I put into the milk to get fermentation started. However, when I did strain the kefir I saw nothing that looked like these grains. I looked up pictures online to see if I was just looking for the wrong thing, but nothing has matched up.

I am currently trying an experiment with the kefir from the big jar, putting half into a strainer with a clean cloth in it to see how thick I can get it.


All in all the kefir experiment has been a success. I ended up with a gallon of kefir for $5 and 24 hours. It looks like what I made will last me almost a month.

Kombucha Culture from the Bottle

Whenever I get settled in to a new place I start up a new batch of kombucha. If you don't know what kombucha is, the short answer is that it is a fermented tea that is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. The long answer includes that it came from Russia, includes many beneficial probiotics and acids, is meant to be very healthy for the digestive system, and is outlined in way too many words on wikipedia.

I usually find someone I know who has a scoby (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) so that I can get myself started. That usually requires I spend some time meeting people and finding someone who actually brews kombucha, OR putting up some kind of cute ad at the local food co-op. Now I love getting to know health-conscious hippie types as much as the next granola foodie, but I really wanted to get my culture rolling lest it take me months to get the show on the road.

So instead of hunting down my own viscous little colony I am trying something suggested by my friend - starting my kombucha from a commercially bottled brand. It will take longer to get going, but should produce the same results as using a scoby.

I chose to use High Country Kombucha Original because it is one of my favorites. It is also one of the few commercially bottled kombucha brands that I can find without juices added. I spoke with a friend who has started her culture from this brand, and she suggested the following recipe:

1 bottle of Original High Country Kombucha (or another plain variety)
3-4 liters of water
2-3 tablespoons of organic black tea
1 cup of raw sugar

Set out the bottle of kombucha to reach room temperature. Boil the water and pour into a sterilized stainless steel or glass (no plastic!) container. Steep the tea in the water until the desired strength and then remove. Pour in the sugar and let it dissolve. Let the sweetened tea sit out until it reaches room temperature, then pour in the bottled kombucha. Cover your container with a clean cloth and place somewhere warm where there is no direct sunlight. The kombucha should start to culture as soon as you
put it in, but be patient with the results as this method can take up to a month.

There are many ways you can drink kombucha. Some people start a new batch when it gets to their desired level of fermentation, and put the finished product in the fridge. Others will engage in a more continuous fermentation, adding more ingredients and pulling out kombucha as needed. Some people drink it straight at room temperature, others like to chill it. You can also add it to juice or sweeten it with a little sugar (but do so just before you are going to drink it, if you put sugar in it and put it away you will restart fermentation).

When Jason and I were in New Zealand we stayed with a couple who were homesteading and teaching wwoofers to build cob houses. Every morning we met in the kitchen and stood around the wood-fired cookstove with wine glasses filled with kombucha, hot water, and blackcurrant syrup. We toasted the start of each day before settling in for a delicious breakfast of pog.

Beyond the health benefits of kombucha I definitely cling to this bit of nostalgia when I partake in kombucha today. I drink kombucha for health, for comfort, for taste, and for fun. I have no intention of telling you that you SHOULD drink it, but I recommend it if you like sour flavors and believe in the benefit of consuming fermented foods.

I will let you know how my commercially-bottled culture turns out!