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Monday, April 16, 2012

Adventures in Kombucha Making Your Own Scoby



kombucha

About a year ago I discovered Kombucha., yet I was afraid of it for some reason. It seemed mysterious and foreign. I decided to try some store bought kombucha, actually they opened one in the store for us to sample it. I was hooked. I have been ever since. I buy several a week. There are many benefits to drinking kombucha is you are not familiar with it.  One draw back is that it costs anywhere from $2.50 to $4.00 a bottle. I considered kombucha my “Starbucks”.  As you can imagine my husband who found out how much Cliff Bars cost  was keen for me to try to make my own kombucha. Making your own costs about $1.50 a gallon. A  huge savings.
For those of you not familiar with kombucha in a nut shell it a drink made from tea that is fermented. It is rich in probiotics and thus aids in digestion and is detoxifying.
I thought about ordering a scoby online since I could not find anyone who already had some.  I opted to buy a bottle of raw organic kombucha at my local health food store. The people at the health food store assured me that brewing my own kombucha is easy and can be quite fun..  I can assure it it was fun. My son, Pumpkin (7) and I decided to make an experiment with it.  Let me tell you the hardest part is the waiting.
Since I did not purchase a scoby I had to grow my own.  I bought some organic kombucha, the unflavored variety works best, though you can use a one with ginger. 
I assure you that this is as simple as making some sun tea.
To make your own Scoby You will need
  • a clean glass jar
  • a bottle of store bought Organic Raw Kombucha
  • Sugar
  • one tea bag
  • filtered water
  • a kitchen towel
  • time and patience
That is all you need. Like yeast scoby likes things a little warm. The week I decided to grow mine it was a little cool so it took about 10 days to grow a full size mother. The best thing is that my “mother” is already growing babies. Once you grow your scoby you can begin brewing your kombucha. We enjoyed our fist kombucha this week, but you will have to wait to here about that, so be sure to come back to read about flavoring your kombucha.

this post is linked up with Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, Wildcrafting Wednesday

6 comments:

Annie at Haphazard Homestead said...

I'm excited for you. We started making our own kombucha around the first of this year. We were given a scoby, so we didn't have to wait long to try it. We like it so well that we have moved on to a "continuous brew" system. I hope to post about it on my blog sometime soon.

We are also making water kefir and milk kefir, which are different from kombucha but also have probiotic properties.

Lisa - the Granola Catholic said...

We are pretty much doing the "continuous brew" method too. I separated those two scobys and now have two separate batches brewing as well as that original 1/2 gallon in a secondary ferment with cherry juice.

Anonymous said...

How much should you drink daily of kombucha? Can you drink too muuch?

Lisa - the Granola Catholic said...

Great Question! I don't think you can drink too much kombucha, but if your body is not used to it, it will take some time to adjust to it, so start off slowly with a small amount and build up.

Kellie said...

We tasted some berry kombucha for the first time last week from the health food store. We didn't really like it, but know how good it is for us. You said you were hooked the first time you tried it. Did it taste super-vinegary to you? Maybe it's the brand? I was excited to see your post, and I am thinking of attempting to make it.

Kellie
www.earthylilmama.com

Lisa - the Granola Catholic said...

Kellie, I tried a ginger berry kombucha, perhaps it was the ginger or the fact that I missed the bubbles in soda. I do happen to like things that a little sour too.

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