“We turn little moments into delightful souvenirs of a life well lived.”
Today’s delightful souvenirs in the kitchen is… tada! The ever famous health drink KOMBUCHA made simply and cheaply in the comfort of your own kitchen. And for added health benefits, we are flavouring our Kombucha with lemon and ginger. Health for guts galore! Yehey!
This lemon ginger kombucha is made with our very own homemade SCOBY as well – here’s the LINK if you’d like to make it yourself. It’s so easy! The hardest part is waiting.
Because of the COVID-19 quarantine and lock-downs, i find myself the rare opportunity of having more time than usual. I ventured on cooking and baking like most these days. A friend introduced me to ginger beer and I got hooked. That experience emboldened me to try making Kombucha. I discovered that SCOBY is needed to make the healthy KOMBUCHA. But I could not find SCOBY anywhere. I saw a dried SCOBY online but the reviews weren’t very good.
In comes the amazing cooking and fermenting gurus on Youtube. I think Youtube is amazing for learning new things. I did some research and I dived in head first. Kidding… I had some materials on hand already as have been contemplating this for a while. Just needed the time and the courage to make it and if ever, to fail and try again. So, here we are. The good news is – it’s not that hard at all, the hardest part is having patience to wait. I checked my SCOBY almost daily to see the changes that happened in my KOMBUCHA jar. It was an amazing experience.
So if you are contemplating making your own SCOBY and KOMBUCHA, please, go ahead and give SCOBY a try, it’s not difficult. Just make sure that all your equipment/materials and your hands are very very clean. We want the bacteria to thrive – but only the good bacteria.
Life of a KOMBUCHA
Stage 1 – Making the SCOBY (2 weeks to 1 month)
Stage 2 – First Brew (6-10 days)
Stage 3 – Carbonation (Second Brew 3-10 days)
Stage 4 – Time to Enjoy! – Chill in the fridge and serve.
Here are the INGREDIENTS for making our SCOBY
(Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast)
7 cups clean water
4 tea bags – BLACK TEA
1/2 sugar – WHITE granulated sugar
2 cups raw, organic kombucha (unpastuerized)
PROCEDURE
How to Make the SCOBY at home:
Boil water and allow to continue to boil a few minutes before removing from heat.
Add in the black tea bags and sugar. Stir to dissolve sugar.
Remove the black tea bags.
Allow tea to steep until the liquid comes to room temperature.
Please make sure that the tea has cooled completely and add in the raw, organic kombucha.
Transfer into a 4 L jar and cover with a tightly woven cloth. Secure with a string or an elastic band.
Let the KOMBUCHA rest in a warm dark place for 2-4 weeks.
The Scoby will begin forming at 1 week.
In about two weeks, the Kombucha could be tested to drink and the scoby be used to brew another batch of kombucha. But for the sake of growing a full, mature SCOBY, I decided to let it grow for a full month.
KOMBUCHA (https://youtu.be/MWLOT0iFQR8)
First Brew Procedure
Boil 14 cups of clean water
Steep in 8 tea bags (this time, you can choose which tea you’d like, example: green tea)
Add 1 cup of sugar (you may also try a different kind of sweetener)
2 cups of starter (previously brewed kombucha or raw and organic store bought kombucha)
1 SCOBY
Please check out my next video and we will go in detail in making our KOMBUCHA first brew.
LINK: https://youtu.be/MWLOT0iFQR8
KOMBUCHA
Second Brew:
With super clean hands, remove the SCOBY from the Kombucha jar (this is optional if you have a Drink Jar with a spout to drain the liquid with).
Reserve 2 cups of the brew to serve as starter for the next Kombucha Batch.
Transfer the Kombucha into your Kombucha bottles (brewing bottles). Leave about 2 inches of empty space at the top.
Add flavourings. Example: grated ginger and lemon juice. Add a little bit more sweetener if desired. Other types of sweetener besides sugar can be used such as agave syrup or honey.
Keep at room temperature, in a dark place for 3-10 days to carbonate.
Chill before serving.
Pro Tip: Use a plastic water bottle as gauge for the Kombucha carbonation. While the others are brewing in glass bottles, the plastic bottle with become full and hard once the kombucha has fully carbonated. This is a signal to burp the Kombucha bottles or time to serve. This will prevent bottle explosions caused by too much carbonation.
Thank you for watching my video!