How To Make Kombucha – The Complete Guide

In this post I’d like to talk a little bit about how to make the one of the most healthy drinks you can ever make, kombucha. Some have called it the elixir of life. There are many benefits to kombucha that I’ll be writing about in the future.

You can make the process of making kombucha as complicated as you like with things like using other ingredients than green tea, [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=xC47BEUNdAo width=640 height=480 anchor=secondary_fermentations], flavorings ([video_lightbox_youtube video_id=flm4o5Ry85g width=640 height=480 anchor=root_beer_floats] anyone?), continuous brewing etc.

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to try to keep it as simple as possible so you’ll actually go do it! If something is too complicated it’s easy to ignore.

Let’s get right into it.

What You’ll Need:

1. A scoby (sybiotic culture of bacteria & yeast). I got mine from The Kefir Lady but you can get them at Kombucha Kamp as well. Or you can [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=nYsJdYC6B98 width=640 height=480 anchor=grow_your_own] scoby.
2. 2 gallon glass jar (I used 1 gallon in this example)
3. Trader Joe’s Organic Green Tea
4. 1 cup raw organic evaporated cane sugar
5. 1 cup starter liquid (you even can use High Country if you’d like)
6. Cloth cover (a cut t-shirt will do)
7. Rubber band
8. Tea kettle (See the one I use)
9. Clean filtered water (not tap water!)

In this method I’m going to show you the short cut method for this kombucha recipe. Basically you need to boil the tea but you can’t poor the hot tea right on top of the scoby, you’ll kill it. The scoby likes a moderately luke warm water. You’ll only boil about 4 cups of water, then add the other water to it to make it a mildly hot temperature.

There are also [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=fGh4gescLu8 width=640 height=480 anchor=more_advanced_methods] like using [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=rFyq3XdYBR8 width=640 height=480 anchor=other_kinds_of_tea] other than green tea but to keep it simple and get you on the right track, start out using organic green tea.

This method is for making a 1 gallon kombucha recipe. You can scale up or down depending on the size of your brewing container.

Kombucha Recipe Directions:

• Boil 6 cups of water
• Add in 6 tea bags
• Add 1 cup of sugar and stir to prevent it from carmeling
• Let it steep for about 5 minutes and then remove teabags
• Poor the boiled tea into a clean brewing vessel (see photo below)
• Fill the rest of the glass container with ideally room temperature water. Leave 2 inches up top
• Add in the scoby
• Poor starter liquid on top of the scoby
• Cover up with cloth and rubber band
• Keep warm if possible for 7 days to 4 weeks depending on temperature

After seven days you can check to see how sweet it still is. The more sour the better it will be for you. The sweater it is, the less healthy it will be but better tasting (obviously). You’ll notice each batch will never taste the same depending on the fermentation time, outside air temperature and your taste buds.

When you start off drinking kombucha start with a few ounces per day. See what feels best for you. Typically people run into the problem of drinking too much and getting sick. It’s very detoxifying to the colon and digestion. It usually tastes so good and people will pay the price. If it’s made well, it’s very powerful so don’t drink too much.

Like I mentioned before there are all kinds of other things you can do as well like a secondary fermentation where you put them into seperate glass bottles to create bubbles, and fizz. The carbonation and [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=yJcwzC7jPX8 width=640 height=480 anchor=flavoring] typically occurs most during the secondary fermentation.

As your scoby’s grow you can give them away, store them in a [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=SFBfyyRjyYo width=640 height=480 anchor=scoby_hotel] or even blend them up to use as face masks etc.

If you would like more information about how to get more bubbles and fizz into your kombucha there are beginner and advanced methods.

As you can see I learned everything I know about making kombucha from Hannah Crum and the work she has done. She’s the kombucha guru in my opinion. I would suggest going over to her “kommunity” and learning more.

Thanks Hannah! 🙂

Question Of The Day:

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