Kombucha

This is a tally ho food project if ever I heard one!

I just got my first SCOBY or mother of vinegar starter last weekend. It's in a small mason jar and floating on the top which means it is happy right now.

what I needed

-SCOBY starter plus and a cup of kombucha for it to live in
-gallon of water
-1 heaping cup of sugar
-1tsb basic black tea
-1tsb basic green tea
-a cloth tea bag
-one large glass or ceramic wide mouth container ( I got mine from Target)
-Piece of cloth to cover top of brewing container
-rubber band to secure cloth to container

First thing first sanitize EVERYTHING! You don't want your kombucha to have to compete with any other less health wild yeast or bacterias that might be hanging around so I like to have a container of food safe proportion of iodine or some other sanitizer to wash everything (including hands) in.

Start by boiling water. Fill tea bag with teas. Once boiling seep the tea for 15 minutes while boiling. After seeped I decided to mix in sugar and cool down the brew ice bath style. This is something I learned from brewing beer. Empty your sink and place the hot pot in the sink. You can either fill ice around the pot or run a cold water bath for it to sit in. This will save you Hours.

Once the water is down around 90-85 degrees time to transfer the sweet tea into the glass container. Now you can move your SCOBY (shiny side up) and extra liquid into the glass container. Only thing left then is cover with the cloth so it can get air, secure it down with the rubber band to keep fruit flies out and find a nice out of the way place for you kombucha to grow. Keep it out or areas you smoke in or with lots of smells (like the kitchen)

Right now my is chillaxing on a bookshelf in the hallway.