Pages

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Successful Kombucha!

We just bottled and consumed our first successful batch of kombucha - it was our second attempt to make this delicious fermented live culture tea elixir that has a long list of reputed health benefits.  This time we got a large starter "mother" culture (i.e. a gelatinous mass of bacteria and yeast) from a helpful neighbour (thanks Mike!).  It seems that finding this "mother" is the hardest part of making kombucha.   After a week of steeping our tea with the starter culture and mother floating on top, it had turned into what we think to be just as tasty a kombucha as any we've been purchasing from the health food store.  I think we might be hooked.

Once we have the starter we can keep brewing, sort of the way you keep a small portion of live culture yogurt or sourdough from each batch to start the following batch.  We used a wonderful favourite wild blueberry rooibos (called the "Manitoba Blend", a gift from this tea shop in Winnipeg) blended with black tea - here is our method:

Making Kombucha 
1 litre water
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp loose black tea
other herbal blend to flavour (if desired - e.g. blueberry, lemon, ginger, etc)
1/2 cup mature acidic kombucha from last batch

Make tea, steep with sugar for 15 minutes.  Strain, let cool, the pour into large wide-mouth clean glass jar.  Add mature kombucha (save a portion of each batch for the next starter).  Place mother in the liquid with firm side up.  Cover with fine meshed cheese cloth or cotton muslin cloth, let sit in warm room for 7-10 days.  Taste to see when your preferred acidic flavour is ready.  Then store in refrigerator.




4 comments:

  1. Where can I get kombucha mother here in the K-W area? kindly let me know.
    Ruth
    ruthzopari@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Question:
    If we want to start this process from the beginning, how can we get a "mother". We enjoy Kombucha and love the health benefits. Thanks in advance - jkaranfilis@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have a friend in Thunder Bay who would like to start making kombucha, any idea where she could get a scoby? Thanks! lastmaxim@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. For those locally, kombucha starters can be bought at the downtown Kitchener health food store Full Circle. They carry starter kits for about $20. Otherwise, there are online shops you can find that will mail order starters, or we even heard of someone buying a "mother" kombucha from an ad on kijiji.

    ReplyDelete