How to brew your Kombucha
Equipment
☼ 1.5 litre vessel (a glass vessel would be ideal, don’t use plastic or metal)
☼ Cloth
☼ Elastic
☼ Pan
☼ Strainer
☼ Wooden spoon
☼ 1/4 cup of white granulated sugar
☼ 2 teaspoons or tea bags of your choice of caffeinated tea
☼ Kombucha SCOBY in a small quantity of starter liquid (unflavoured Kombucha that has been fermented for longer than two weeks)
Directions
☼ Wash your vessel
☼ Bring 1 litre filtered or bottled water to boil in a pan or kettle turn off the heat allow to cool for approximately five minutes
☼ Add the green tea and steep for 10 minutes.
☼ Strain off the tea leaves.
☼ Add the sugar stir to dissolve.
☼ Allow the sweetened tea to cool right down to room temperature.
☼ Pour the tea into your vessel.
☼ Mix in the starter liquid.
☼ With clean hands place the scoby into your vessel, it may float or sink, either is ok.
☼ Fix the cloth over the top with elastic or a rubber band.
☼ Place your Kombucha brew in a warm dark place, near a radiator would be a good place, but don’t place directly on a heat source.
☼ You can now wait for about a week before tasting the tea. It is dependent on your own preference when you wish to drink the Kombucha, the longer you wait the more sugar will be consumed by the culture and the more sour and vinegary the drink will become.
☼ When you are happy with the balance of sweet and sour, remove the scoby and a small quantity of the liquid for your next batch. You can now drink your original Kombucha or flavour it in a second ferment.
Second ferments
Pour your original Kombucha into a swing-top bottle and add to this your chosen flavouring, this could be for example some raspberries, frozen or fresh are both fine. This can now be left for a few days for the flavour to develop. During this time carbonation will build up so don’t leave it for too long without releasing the top – you don’t want to have any explosions! You can now strain off the raspberries and drink.