Kombucha!

I'm having my first crack at brewing my own kombucha. So far things are going well - I am 8 days into fermentation and I'm going to let it go a couple more, as it is still a bit too sweet for my taste. Anyone else tried making kombucha at home? Any flavoring ingredients or recipes would be greatly appreciated! For my first batch, I'm going to bottle some plain, and do a mango one and black currant flavored one also. We'll see how it goes - wish me luck!

We have a friend who's been making kombucha. I thought her unflavored version, which had just a touch of sugar remaining, was quite good. My favorite, though, is kombucha with a good dose of ginger in it.

[Jenise]

I'm such a cocktail unsophisticate, and if I started studying real hard right now I'd still never catch up with Mike. So...what's kombucha?

I'm such a cocktail unsophisticate, and if I started studying real hard right now I'd still never catch up with Mike. So...what's kombucha?

'Cha' is the Japanese word for tea and kombucha is a fermented version of various teas with different bacteria and yeast. (Kombu is a type of seaweed although I understand there is no seaweed in the tea and that term may have been added for idiosyncratic historical reasons)

I don't make kombucha, but for the past 3-4 months I have been making my own ginger ale/beer. It is the same principle, but I created my starter by capturing the natural wild yeast around us starting with a cocktail of spring water, chopped ginger and sugar. Within a week I had a quality yeast starter, I now have not quite a quart of very active live culture that I have made a gallon of ginger ale from about 4 times. Great stuff!! Thinking about starting kombucha.

I'm such a cocktail unsophisticate, and if I started studying real hard right now I'd still never catch up with Mike. So...what's kombucha?

"Just because Mike likes it means it must have alcohol in it" is a good rule of thumb for most drinks, but not this one. (OK, kombucha does have some alcohol in it, but not very much.)

There was an abandoned plastic container from somebody unknown in the shared work refrigerator that I finally cleaned out. The oval, fuzzy disc which remained from the food could have easily been a konbucha starter colony.

My best results have come with just plain or with and addition of ginger. I like it so I keep it that way.

But I have taken to making lacto fermented lemon/lime aid. So much easier and less floaties so the family likes to drink it.

Next is lacto fermented pickles.

Jason