A Beginner’s Guide to Brewing Kombucha | Institute of Culinary Education (2024)

FAQs

A Beginner’s Guide to Brewing Kombucha | Institute of Culinary Education? ›

You only need one SCOBY for your starter liquid — you can give the other to a kombucha friend in need, store it in a SCOBY Hotel, or compost it.

You only need one SCOBY for your starter liquid — you can give the other to a kombucha friend in need, store it in a SCOBY Hotel, or compost it.

Kombucha can be brewed from 7 to 30 days. A longer brewing time results in less sugar and a more vinegary-flavored beverage. A shorter brew will give a more fruity sweet drink.

Don't try to “clean” them off. Those yeasts help create carbonation. If you have yeast overgrowth (if it's covering most of your SCOBY), you can remove some of it, but don't get rid of it all!

Making kombucha tea requires five simple ingredients: water, tea, sugar, starter tea, and a kombucha starter culture (SCOBY).

The beauty of it is that it can be reused endlessly! Once you've finished fermenting your kombucha, simply recuperate the scoby and store it to start a new kombucha recipe. The easiest way to store a kombucha scoby is to start a new fermentation just after bottling.

If you still want to make a gallon, then yes, SCOBYs can be cut in half. Make sure to clean a clean/sterile cutting instrument to avoid contamination.

Seeing a SCOBY form over the opening of the brewing vessel, the development of brown stringy yeast particles, and the liquid inside becoming less sweet and more like vinegar are all signs that the kombucha is culturing properly.

The shelf life of your kombucha is determined by the pH level, yeast growth, and alcohol content. The pH needs to stay between 2.5 and 4.2 and the alcohol content should not exceed 0.5%. Signs of yeast growth include mold that could be black, gray, brown, green, or even blue.

Another quick note on “doneness” — after around 5 days in the vessel, the brew is ready to drink as-is. It'll already be inoculated with that great, live bacteria. Some people like to drink kombucha right after F1, and that's totally fine. You do not need to flavor and bottle your kombucha before you drink it.

Do you throw away old SCOBY? ›

You will only need to replace your SCOBY if it has developed mold or if it is continuously struggling to ferment. Often with struggling SCOBYs, things can be done to help bring balance to your culture depending on the situation, and you won't need to start over completely.

How Do I Know If My Kombucha Scoby Is Dead? The only way to know if your kombucha scoby is dead is to test it in a new kombucha batch and wait a few weeks. If your sweet tea has not become acidic after 15 days, then you can definitely conclude that your kombucha scoby has died.

This is the simplest option – you can brew a normal batch of kombucha with multiple SCOBYs in the one jar. Normally they will fuse together into a mega SCOBY over time. Depending on what sort of jar you are using, this can make them difficult to get in and out when harvesting your fresh kombucha brew.

Organic cane sugar is the best option for brewing kombucha. It is easily broken down by the yeast and bacteria with consistent results. When sugar is more complex, it is less available for microbial consumption, introducing extra variables that can affect brewing duration, flavor, and overall success.

If a SCOBY has been shared with you, you don't need to use it immediately. As long as it's in a clean, glass container, it'll do just fine and will be waiting until you're ready to use it. If it's sealed with an airtight lid, you can swap it out with a breathable cotton lid (secured with a rubber band) if you like.

Without starter liquid, the SCOBY is the only source of bacteria and yeast, requiring much longer for the brew to gain similar power. Some sites or even SCOBY sellers tell you to use vinegar with the SCOBY.

You can't really save or re-use your baby SCOBYs to make future batches of kombucha or anything like that, because they've already been flavored with fruit (and because they're too small to be effective for brewing more kombucha anyhow).

Can I make kombucha without a starter tea? A. Yes, you can use an equal portion of distilled white vinegar in place of starter tea. Alternatively you may use bottled raw, unflavored kombucha tea, which can be purchased at many health food and grocery stores.

A SCOBY that has not been fed for a while will use up all available sugar over about eight weeks and then go dormant for a while. Eventually though, the bacteria and yeast will need to eat so the culture will begin to die off and eventually the SCOBY will turn black and rot.