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Welcome to Kombuchaville

Kombuchaville is a sacred place, there is never a 5 O'Clock in Kombuchaville it is timeless

We are drinking kombucha because it is a metabolic balancer, a probiotic, an adaptogen and a detoxifier; now, we know what probiotics are and we know what a detoxifier is but what is an adaptogen? An adaptogen contains antioxidents and they help normalize the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. They are natural, homeostatic metabolic regulators that just toughen all system against any stresses to the body.[Kombucha also stimulates the liver and it is a diuretic. Kombucha encourages Bifidobacteria and reduces Bacteroides and Candida by creating an acid condition in the gut and provides needed vitamins especially vitamin B12 which is an important non animal source of the vitamin for vegans. That is all we are going to say about the benefits of kombucha. I could talk about testimonials concerning limb regeneration and E.D. success stories but that would take pages. We will just assume the stuff is good for you. You can google the rest

These are my personal discoveries in brewing with kombucha mushrooms to make kombucha tea

First just to get them out of the way we are going to talk negative, here are all the "no's"

No Smoking, no incense or painting the room with your cultures in it, no harsh cleaning fluids instead use orange or grapefruit oil based cleaners for cleaning the area where you ferment which you should do anyhow, light is O.K but no direct sunlight, no yelling, no violent sex, no metal including heavy metal, no rings on your fingers when coming in close contact with the cultures. No soap residue. No tap water. No plastic that is not food grade plastic and then not much of that.

Those are the "no's" now here are some "don't's"

Don't screw with your cultures unless you have too. Don't boil your spring water but just bring it close to boiling, If you must use tap boil it for 10 minutes and with either source of water, don't bring them to your kombucha unless they are room temperature. Don't talk down to your kombucha, they know whatup.

Very important and I am not kidding

Water is very important, try to use the best spring water. The important thing about water is you must drink it and lots of it. Even without doing kombucha water is the most preventive way to avoid metabolic imbalance and disease. It is easily said and easily ignored but it is very true and very important. You are now doing a new regimen of diet and your system will be affected by it. Whether it is kombucha, kefir, noni juice, aqui or goji berry; whether it is heavy meditation or a move to be a vegetarian, you are going to release long held toxins and these toxins must be removed quickly from you systems. Water is the way and without lots of water these toxins may cause problems manifesting in flu like symptoms, sleeplessness, headaches, diarrhea and worse. So just drink the water. The average person needs about a half gallon or 8 cups and big football type guys need more. Oh, and kombucha is also a diuretic and makes you pee. Don't drink so much kombucha, especially at first, just because it is good and taste good does not mean more is better. Drink a lot of water, now get out of here and read the rest of the article have a drink of water while you are reading. Go on. I'll wait till you get back.

O.K.

How to brew a quart (32 ounces) of kombucha tea with the kombucha mushroom you just got in the mail.

We are talking about a quart because you will get your mushroom in the mail with 4 or 6 or 8 ounces of starter. Starter is actually kombucha tea. You need some kombucha tea to make more kombucha tea. What you receive with your mushroom as starter will play an intricate part of your first batch of brew. Later; when you have more starter you can brew more tea, if you want to brew a half gallon (2 quarts or 64 ounces) just double all the numbers of this recipe and if you want to brew a gallon (4 quarts or 128 ounces) fourblize the numbers or multiply the numbers by four.

There is a method where you don't have to use kombucha tea as starter and it may come in handy to know. You can use distilled white vinegar. A tablespoon; or better yet, a tablespoon and a half per quart of distilled vinegar, white, apple, cider or white wine vinegar can take the place of kombucha tea as a starter if it is necessary, maybe you forgot and drank all you starter or you dropped the jar and the starter is on the floor. You can use this alternative method. It will make the fermentation process take longer but it will keep the culture safe from mold which is the purpose of starter. Remember the vinegar must be distilled not live, brewed or fermented.

O.K.; so, you got your mushroom and your starter in the mail, what next? Well; we are going to do our water thing and start heating a lot more than 32 ounces. When we get our natural spring water rear to a boil or when we have boiled our tap water for 10 minutes we are going to measure or estimate 32 ounces in our stainless steel pot by removing the excess heated water down to 32 ounces (I forgot to mention, don't use aluminum use only stainless steel to heat your water) So; we have 32 ounces in the pot by whatever method we got there.

Now; we are going to operate on the 10% rule, everything is going to be based upon 10% because that will work and it's easy to remember, we will also deviate from the rule but don't worry about that now. We are going to put in 2 tea bags or 2 tablespoons of loose black tea into the 32 ounces we have heated, if we are using boiling tap water wait for the water to stop boiling.

Did you know that green tea is black tea? They are from the same tea plant but they are prepared differently and but green tea is caffeine free and black it is caffeinated. Believe it or not I have read in more than one place that the kombucha mushroom prefers caffeinated black tea; but, you can use green tea if your stomach is sensitive or if you are making the tea for a person who is sensitive to caffeine. It is then recommended that you go back to the black tea. You can use a tea called oolong which is in between black and green tea and does contain caffeine, less than black tea but more than green tea. By the way; kombucha digests the black tea and after about 7 days half of the caffeine is gone.

Now we have our 32 ounces of water brewing our 2 tablespoons of loose tea or 2 teabags of tea. After about 5 or 10 minutes of that we now add about 3.2 ounces of sugar. We don't want to put the sugar in when the water is too hot because it might caramelize and yet we don't want to put the sugar in when it is too cool because it won't dissolve (you figure it out) After 20 minutes stir and remove the teabags. Take out of the mixture 10% which is 3.2 ounces and then take out another 5% which is about an ounce and a half and wait till the mixture is room temperature.

When the mixture of tea and sugar is at room temperature add the same amount of starter tea to equal what you took out before when the new tea with sugar was still hot or you can put in a little more. You need to put in 10 to 25% starter tea to the ratio of new tea and sugar in order to create a ph level in the final mixture that will prevent mold. The amount you use is up to you and when you have more experience you can play with that figure between 10 and 25% In this recipe I have suggested 15% you can adjust that amount after you have been doing this for a while.

End Of Part One

Below are the rest of the directions for fermenting with your kombucha scoby plus there are links to further information about kombucha and then there is an article about aging, flavoring and bottling your kombucha for a great taste, a reat healthful drink with lots of foamy bubbles!

Part 2 is below the link page

Now we put the mushroom in this final mixture. It does not matter if the mushroom appears to be upside down. It does not matter if the mushroom is too small or too large for the container you are planning to combine the mushroom and mixture in. What does matter is that the mushroom will be in a container that has enough room so the mixture can more than cover the mushroom and then there must also be room enough so that when you cover the container with a coffee filter, or a cloth, or nylon stocking, no part of the covering can droop down and touch the new mixture that will ferment for the next week or 2. Air plays an important part in the fermentation process so don't stack or cover the brewing containers but be sure to see that they get air. It is also at this point where you will be touching your kombucha mushroom, wash your hands very well, rinse them very well and use plastic gloves if you can%u2026..

Everything is in order now and we are brewing. Keep the mixture in its glass container with its porous top that allow in air and keeps out bugs and other things that we don't want in our fermenting mixture. Keep it in a warm quiet place ideally where the temperature is 78 to 82 degrees. If you are serious about brewing kombucha you will buy a heating pad system and monitor the temperature.

In a few days a jelly like membrane will start to spread on the top of the mixture. The mother mushroom may be attached right underneath the membrane or it could be separated on the bottom or even standing on its side. The membrane will grow and solidify, it may be bumpy and uneven, and it may appear to have different shades or colors or black spots. This is normal. Many people get upset when they see a sort of blue hue and they think mold but this is usually not mold, (we will talk about mold a little further down the page). Sometimes the new mushroom will blow up with air like a balloon and this is actually a good sign. I am going to send a very pretty mushroom because that is what is expected but a pretty mushroom means nothing, that mushroom that is blowing up like a balloon is doing so because there is a lot of carbon dioxide going on in the mixture which is a good sign of a good fermentation but the mushroom may not be pretty. The carbon dioxide may make the mushroom uneven or may even create a hole or holes, those are not bad things. Under the new mushroom and the mother or between them may be black stringy things, those are spent yeast products and they are not bad things either.

In about 6 days take a drinking straw; put your index finger over the hole on one side and put the other side in the mixture without disturbing the mushroom too much. Draw out a couple of inches of the mixture and taste it. If you like the way it tastes the brewing process is done; otherwise, do the same process every other day until you do like the taste; with a little experience you will find your own method and time to test the brew. Remember this, every time you disturb your new mushroom by getting some tea on its top, it will stop growing and a new mushroom will begin on top of it. There is nothing wrong with this at all.

The most vulnerable time for your mushroom and mixture is when they are first combined and it is possible to find mold on the new membrane in a day or two. If there is not enough starter or if the starter is weak (you can test the starter by tasting it and if it is sweet and not vinegary it is weak and then it would be good to add some white distilled vinegar, about a teaspoon more) if there is a problem with the starter then it is possible for it to be susceptible to mold. Don't throw the mixture out so fast. Let it grow a few days. If you see clearly defined tiny concentric circles like what you might find on an old piece of bread that is mold, don't worry so much about it, it won't kill you even if you drank it' but the mixture, if it does have mold, will not be fermented and will taste sweet even after many days brewing. That is mold, throw it away.

I wash my utensils in the dishwasher with no soap; I use plastic gloves when touching the mushrooms. I splash some white vinegar on the utensils and in the jars. I have never had mold and my kombucha is beautiful. Oh; I forgot to mention about the sugar. Once again; believe it or not kombucha prefer plain white sugar and I have also read this in more than one place. If you want to buy fancy expensive alternatives to white sugar you may but you are just waisting you money. That is how I understand it.To Store Kombucha simply brew it with the same ingredients as above the only difference will be you will want a container that is much wider than the mushroom, if the container is not very wide the mushroom may kinda grab hold of the containers edges and hold on and as the liquid is absorbed and evaporates. The mushroom will stay in the same place holding on to the container while the mixture sinks below it leaving the mushroom suspended above the mixture holding on to the sides of the container which we don't want. If the container is very wide the mushroom will stay in the liquid mixture and you can leave it there for about 3 or 4 weeks as long as the mixture and mushroom are in contact and the mushroom is not sitting on the bottom of the container with no mixture. Get the picture? If not email me

The thing about sugar

You may not want to believe it but white sugar is best for brewing kombucha. White sugar is the simplest sugar and breaks down the easiest. It is the easiest and fastest sugar for kombucha to digest and kombucha does best when it is fed white sugar. At the end of 5 to 10 days of brewing 80% percent of this white sugar will be changed into into healthy acids and digestive enzymes.

People who suffer from Candida and are using kefir in hopes that it may help them need a longer fermentation periodp>

So although it sounds wrong black tea and white sugar do kombucha best

Finally, these directions will help you to a fine brew with many healthful benefits. I may have left things out and you are certainly welcome to email me at http://www.bacteriapimp@yahoo.com/ with any questions or to tell me how wrong I am. I really welcome the communication, bring the world; I have met such nice people from all over the world by answering questions about kombucha and kefir.

Below are further links to pictures of kombucha at various stages and a series of nasty looking kombucha that are actually very potent and healthy kombucha babies... they are shown to show what might be thought of as bad scoby's but they are actually good ones. Plus below is an article about how to age, infuse and bottle you kombucha

Why not take your kombucha brewing to the next level? I find my kombucha is best right at the point where I take the culture out and harvest the tea. At that point when I pour the fermented tea into a container the bubbles are the best; but, it's all down hill from there.

So I bottle the rest and even if the tea was not that bubbly to begin with after 2 weeks of aging it is now bubbly bubbly. This is how you do it

When you get your kombucha the way you like it take out the culture and strain the result in a plastic strainer. Strain again in either a brown coffee filter and if that doesn't work for you strain thru a non dyed clothe or a non dyed cheese cloth. This is to get lots of the big strains of bacteria out to slow and further fermentation while aging.

Now you need a container to age in... I use a pottery bottle like the one in the picture. It is crocery and I don't have to worry about it exploding, you can use glass but It is a little dangerous.. I also use these Grolsch 16 ounce Amber Ale bottles that you can get at a fancy liquir or beer store although you may have to order them. They usually come out to about 2.50$ a bottle the stoneware bottle cost about 9$ both have swingtop tops that are safer than bottle caps because they are less efficient at holding in the pressure which might be good because then they don't explode so fast but you never know because there could be a flaw in the glass so if you are going to use a Grolsch swingtop bottle store in an out of the way place that is cool. You could also use a bail wire closure but they are even more inefficient but they do get the job done. They allow more gas to escape as that is what bail wire jars do.

When you add your kombucha to the bottle you may then add flavorings like lemon juice or stevia or cinnamon but don't add sugar as that will start the fermentation processes which is what we want to avoid. Age for a week or a year but do it in a cool out of the way place and when you plan to open the bottle put it in the refrigerator for 6 or 8 hours or the entire contents may come pouring out when you open the bottle... You have to keep experimenting but you can come up with some mighty fine foamy bubbly brew with a little practice... Happy Brewing !!!