How to brew your own kombucha at home 🏡

🧪 KOMBUCHA BREWING 🧪

 

Recipe:

2L Water
16g Loose Leaf Tea
120g White Cane Sugar
320ml Starter Tea
1 SCOBY Pellice

1ST FERMENTATION ( ~ 7 - 12 days)

The fermentation process of sweet tea → kombucha through the starter tea and SCOBY. Kombucha after 1F is unflavoured and mostly uncarbonated. 

2ND FERMENTATION ( ~ 2 - 4 days)

2F is where you can flavour your kombucha and create carbonation. 

 

🧚 1ST FERMENTATION 🧚

1. Boil tap water.
This is an essential step to remove any impurities that may interfere with your brew (do not use mineral water!).

2. Steep the tea for 30 minutes.
Use good quality loose tea leaves (try to avoid teabags!). You can use Green Tea (lightest taste), Oolong Tea (fruity, fragrant taste), or Black Tea (strongest taste). 

3. Remove tea leaves and measure the remaining volume of tea, ensuring that it is 2L (top up with water if necessary). Then stir in the sugar.

4. Wait for the sweet tea to cool completely to room temperature.
This process of cooling can take around 5 to 6 hours, or more. It's important to wait for the sweet tea to cool before adding in your starter tea/SCOBY as you can end up killing it! :-(

5. Once the sweet tea has cooled, add in 320ml of starter tea and the SCOBY.
Any excess starter tea can be put into another jar to start your SCOBY hotel!

6. Cover the jar with a kitchen cloth or paper towel.
Secure the cover on tightly with a rubberband to ensure that no flies or ants can get into the brew. 

7. Place the jar in the coolest area of your home for a minimum of 7 days.
For our tropical climates, the best option is in the living room! Do not place the jar in your kitchen as the ambient temperature rises during cooking, and this will affect your brew. Avoid placing your jar in the cupboard (as the brew can end up absorbing the smells from your cupboard), or in direct sunlight.

8. It is important not to touch or move the jar while the brew is fermenting. After 7 days, do a taste test!
The only way to tell if your kombucha is done, is by doing a taste test!

If the brew tastes quite sweet still, let it continue to ferment, and subsequently do a daily taste test. The kombucha is ready when it tastes tangy, fizzy, slightly sweet, and pleasant to the tongue. Brew for a minimum of 7 days for probiotic cultures to develop.

9. Once your kombucha is ready, keep 400ml of Kombucha from the top part of the jar for your SCOBY hotel!
This is where the bacteria concentration is strongest. A new baby SCOBY would have also formed - and you can add it into your hotel!

10. Your kombucha is ready to drink! You can choose to drink it now, or proceed to flavour it in 2F.

 

🧚 2ND FERMENTATION 🧚

*Don't forget to set aside 400ml of plain kombucha for your SCOBY hotel!

For 2nd fermentation, we recommend reusing our kombucha bottles to flavour in. Our bottles are pressure rated and perfect for 2F! We DO NOT recommend for you to use swing-top bottles, as they're airtight and leave little room for error - and thus are more prone to explosions.

INFUSION METHOD

This infusion method is somewhat more convenient, and allows for a more subtle flavour to develop. It involves adding your flavouring ingredients directly into the bottle. The longer the time of infusion, the stronger the flavour.

1. Slice your fruits and transfer them into the bottle.

They can be fresh, frozen, or canned fruits - all are good options! Cutting the fruits into smaller pieces increases the surface area for better fermentation.

2. (Option) Add in herbs/flowers (e.g mint, lavender, rose) to the bottle as well.

3. Fill the bottle with your finished kombucha, leaving ~3cm of headspace in the bottle to allow for carbonation to occur.

4. (Optional) Add in ~1tsp of sugar to the bottle (known as priming sugar) for extra fizziness.

5. Cap the bottle tightly. Leave it out at room temperature to ferment for another 3-4 days for the flavour + carbonation to develop.
*There is no need to burp the bottles if you're reusing our bottles to flavour in!

6. After 3-4 days, refrigerate completely before drinking.

Your kombucha should be chilled before opening (cold stabilisation). Never open the bottle at room temperature, unless you want a kombucha fountain!