How I Brew Kombucha

After dangling the teaser that I'm a Kombucha brewer I had follow up with a view into my methods. Today I brewed up 2 gallons of Kombucha. I started brewing about 4 years ago after I took a class in a southeast Portland home. The husband and wife duo are now proud owner of Lion Heart Kombucha (http://www.lionheartkombucha.com/)

Over the years my method has evolved to my taste and convenience. The first thing you will notice is that I have enlisted tea jars with spigots to make dispensing and sampling much simpler. I also tend to use plain white sugar, although I prefer evaporated organic cane juice.

My method is fairly simple.

• Boil one-half gallon of filtered water with 3/4 cup of sugar
• remove the boiling pot and steep the tea for about to minutes
• fill the jar will one-half gallon of filtered water (cold)
• remove tea bags from steeping water and carefully pour the hot, sweet tea into the partially filled jars
• drink down until no more Kombucha will flow from the container
• Repeat, removing excessive layers of SCOBYs as needed

A few technical details:

• I do measure pH. The pH on this batch was 2.8 before fermenting
• The specific gravity before fermenting was 1.020
• I typically use 6 tea bags per gallon (pictures above reflect 2 x 1 gallon batches)
• I sometimes use as much as 1 cup of sugar
• I ferment in a cool basement (~53 degrees in the cold of winter) which is why you see a seed heating mat under the containers. I target high 60s to low 70s for fermentation temperature.
• The coarse cloths on top of containers are needed to allow airflow without allowing contaminants in