I’ve been trying to increase my consumption of fermented foods, recognizing their many health benefits, and especially for digestion. Increasingly, it seems that digestion and gut bacteria have a greater impact on our health and wellbeing than previously understood.

A few years ago, I was buying the giant $10 GT kombucha at the store each week. At the time, I was kicking a bad habit of drinking a glass of wine while making dinner and wanted a fun drink to sip. Kombucha worked perfectly for this purpose! A fizzy, punchy, sweet-enough tea, what’s not to love? It only costs about $3 to make a big batch once you have your SCOBY, and you can customize your gut punch to any flavor you like. I rarely drink wine any more but I have become very interested in drinking and making my own kombucha, in pursuit of these fermented foods!

I bought a starter a few months ago and I’ve been enjoying making kombucha since. My first batch birthed a “baby SCOBY,” so now I have two big jars going. It was super easy to make: dissolve sugar in black tea, cool to lukewarm, add your SCOBY, and let it sit somewhere warm for a week.

You may know what the SCOBY is (the disgusting-looking thing that floats in very alive kombucha), but you may still wonder, “what is SCOBY, exactly?” SCOBY stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. The thick, jelly disk that floats at the top of the brew is often referred to as the SCOBY, but the SCOBY is actually both that mat and starter liquid together. The floating disk is a bacterial cellulose product from the bacteria feeding on sugar in the sweet tea; most of the live bacteria is in the liquid, not the mat, though some bacteria and yeast is in there too. The yeasts (Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, Zygosaccharomyces, Pichia, and others) consume sugars and produce small amounts of alcohol and carbon dioxide, giving kombucha its fizz. Then, the bacteria (Komagataeibacter and others), produce the cellulose mat from sugars and convert alcohol into organic acids such as acetic acid.

When you make your first ferment kombucha, you are giving your SCOBY enough food and time to make a nice, lightly fizzy, fermented tea.

Kombucha Brewing Safety Tips

• Wash your hands before touching your kombucha or SCOBY.
• Sterilize your jars before using. I do this by running them through the dishwasher the night before I want to use them, and handwashing when making an immediate second batch.
• Always begin with enough starter liquid to make sure the pH is less than 4.5, the general rule of thumb is 2 cups starter per gallon container. I follow this, using 1 cup per half-gallon jar. The starter lowers the pH and helps prevent spoilage/mold. (Your finished kombucha should have a pH of 2.5-3.0.)
• Something else that helps prevent spoilage and mold is keeping your kombucha warm enough. Cold means mold!
• If you do, very sadly, find mold in your jar (my condolences), you need to throw away the entire batch including the SCOBY. This is why I am brewing two half-gallon jars, instead of a gallon one. If I lose one to mold, I hope my other will survive.

Kombucha

Make your own homemade kombucha with this beginner-friendly recipe. This recipe is for a healthy, balanced first ferment: a great foundation for second flavored ferments!

I usually double this recipe and make two half-gallon jars.

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Fermenting Time 7 days d

Servings: 6 cups

Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• 8 cups filtered water (do not use tap)
• 4 tea bags black tea
• ½ cup cane sugar
• 1 healthy SCOBY with 1 cup starter liquid (full-of-life kombucha from a previous batch). If you don't have this, you can purchase one!

Equipment

• half-gallon canning jar
• pan
• cloth napkin
• pH Strips (optional)

Method

 

1. If reserving starter from a previous batch, reserve 1 cup tea + a SCOBY per half-gallon jar you want to make.
   
2. Dump your starter tea and a SCOBY into your very clean half-gallon jar. You can sterilize your jar by simply running it through the dishwasher.
3. Bring your 8 cups of filtered water to a boil with the four tea bags. Boil for about ten minutes to make a strong tea.
   
4. Remove from heat and discard the tea bags. Stir in the sugar until fully dissolved.
5. Wait until the sweet, strong tea has cooled to barely warm/room temp. This takes forever but is very important for not killing the beneficial bacteria in your SCOBY and starter tea!
6. Once (finally) cool enough, pour your sweet, strong tea to fill up your jar that already has your SCOBY and starter tea.
   
7. I like to simply use a napkin ring to fix a napkin to the top of the jar. Place your kombucha jar in a warm place for a week.
   
8. Once a week has passed, you are ready to make a second ferment! Be sure to save a cup or two of the brewed kombucha for your next batch of first ferment.
   

Notes

Of course, you can scale this to however big or small your jars are.

For each one cup of water, use 1/2 tea bag and 1 tbsp sugar. (I always use an even number of tea bags, and would just round up instead of splitting a bag!)

In the future (if I continue making kombucha for long enough), I am going to get one of those big spigot jars so I can make a continuous brew without shuffling my jars.

The Second Ferment: Flavor and Fizz!

The second ferment allows the kombuchas brew a few extra days with a little more fuel and a lid on to trap the bubbles. You can get creative with what kind of fuel you give your kombucha, and this is where you can customize your batch with any flavoring you would like! A little sugar, whether from fruits or honey or cane, is needed for the microbes to continue producing bubbles.

My favorite second ferment flavoring is simply lemon ginger. They come out wonderfully spicy. So far, I love making my own kombucha and plan to post many more recipes here for second ferments. ♡

Regardless of how you flavor your kombucha, is very important to “burp” your closed bottles daily. Some people have reported shattered bottles as a result of not burping.

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