To make 5 liters or 2 1/2 gallon jugs (I like a lot of kombucha)
Ingredients:
scoby (mother or starter)
2 gallons of water
3 cups of sugar
10-15 tea bags (white, green, oolong, or black or combination)
(experiment with a variety of flavors – so much fun!)
Method:
Boil water. Dissolve sugar. Turn heat off. Add tea bags. Steep 5-10 minutes or more if you like it stronger. Fish out tea bags. Let the tea cool.
Note: to speed things up. Can boil 1 gal of water (to make concentrated tea), then can dilute with 1 gal of cold water.
Add 2 (+ if want fermentation to go faster) cups of starter kombucha / per 2 gallons of tea.
Once the tea has cooled down, (don’t kill your precious scoby with scalding tea), then add the scoby.
Cover top of your container with cloth and rubber bands (so kombucha can breathe and to keep away the buggies – they sure do love kombucha). Keep away from light.
Keep warm on a warming mats around 72 F. I use seedling starter mats to keep them warm.
Harvesting kombucha can be anywhere from 7-14 days after start. Taste it and make sure it is to your liking. Harvest when you want to. I like to filter it through a cheesecloth before bottling.
If you forget about it, don’t worry, you will have a great kombucha vinegar that you can use for dressings or if it gets super strong it makes a great facial cleanser or a cleaning product. 🙂
When harvesting your bucha, take out the scoby (put scobies, mama and baby, in the scoby hotel in the refrigerator. If you are starting a new batch, then just use your socbies right away). Make sure to remove the stringy brown yeasty parts. Enjoy a nice cold glass of bucha.
Caution: For safety reasons, I like to fill my bottle almost to the top and store the kombucha in the fridge (to prevent explosions). It has happened before and it was totally unsafe. Luckily, it was in my garage and no one was around. Phew!