Do you like kombucha? I do. My son, Jonas, loves it too. There are a lot of health benefits to consuming fermented foods and beverages like kombucha.
I have been making kombucha for quite a number of years now and my kombucha SCOBY has been growing strong ever since I got it in 2017. I took a little class that a local health blogger put on and she sent us home with our own SCOBY for kombucha and water kefir grains for water kefir. I still have dried water kefir grains somewhere in my pantry that I will probably one day rehydrate and attempt to make again. But for now, our fermented beverage of choice is kombucha. (How cool is this? Adrienne has her own fermented foods business now. I had no idea and I can’t wait to check it out.)
When the global lockdown began in March 2020 and sourdough took over the world, people were looking for other fermentation hobbies to try out. Friends who knew I had what they described as “an alien growing on the counter”, decided they’d try growing their own alien by themselves. I made a little video with instructions and tips for them to use to get started. In the end, I think only one of the 8 friends even tried brewing kombucha on their own. It does require patience and by the time the kombucha was ready to bottle, summer was in full force and SCOBY’s were forgotten about. Understandably. I mean, come on, summer is the absolute best time of year.
In order to make kombucha of your own you’ll need to have a few things to start:
- a large glass jar (Amazon affiliate link)
- a healthy kombucha SCOBY
- some healthy kombucha starter liquid
- white sugar
- tea
If you don’t have a friend who makes kombucha to share a SCOBY and starter liquid with you, then you might consider looking for local fermentation groups in your area on Facebook. Many times members of these groups will share and give away their extra SCOBY’s at no cost. If that isn’t an option for you, you might have success trying to grow your own SCOBY from store-bought plain kombucha. I have never needed to do this, so I can’t speak to the success of doing so, but it’s an option anyway. That linked article/how-to also has some additional information about kombucha and SCOBY’s in general which you may find interesting.
I am sharing my Part One video of How To Make Kombucha below. In this video you’ll learn how to brew a half-gallon batch of Kombucha Tea by watching me go through the steps. This is the primary fermentation stage of brewing kombucha tea. I also cover some tips and tricks about SCOBY’s, equipment and types of tea.
(Since I made this video for private viewing by familiar friends, I didn’t bother making it fancy with music or introductory credits or any of that stuff. I also didn’t care that my head was cut off for part of it. Ha. But I also don’t really care about all that kind of stuff anymore anyway, so it is what it is.)
Here’s the post on Making Kombucha – Part Two. Everything you need to know about bottling and flavouring your brewed kombucha tea for secondary fermentation!
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