Monday, November 23, 2009

If you would like a free Kombucha SCOBY I generate about 2 babies a month you can have.
Just bring a glass Quart size canning jar.
write a comment or become a follower and I will give you particulars
I am located in the Portland-Vancouver area

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Batch 11 08-25-2009

Ingredients: 2.5 Gallons well water
1 pod Pu-ehr 1st steep
2 bags Tetley black tea
2 bags green tea
6 bags Oolong tea
4 cups sugar

I Boil 1 Gallon well water. After steeping the tea blend 15 minutes, I dissolve the raw cane sugar as the water cools, 5 minutes later I cool the tea with frozen water bottles.
This formula delivers consistently a tasty plain kombucha and it lends itself well to flavoring with various fruit juices.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Batch 10 8-23-09

Ingredients:
21/2 Gallons well water
6 bags Tetley black tea
2 bags green tea
8 bags Oolong tea
4 cups sugar

Were short on bottles used a Coors screw cap bottle and it exploded after 3 days. Even in my beer drinking days I wasn't a fan of Coors. Now I now the bottles are not that great either.

Batch 9 8-19-09

Ingredients:
2 Gallons well water
6 bags Tetley black tea
2 bags green tea
8 bags Oolong tea
4 cups sugar
we make enough kombucha now to leave 1/5th of the old kombucha in the brew vessel to try to grow some of the more beneficial components only available in processe longer tha 10 days.
I can also share kombucha with friends now. we are producing an average of 4 gallons every 8-10 days. During the hotter days 85 and hotter webrewed faster but the Kombucha did not have as complex flavors as during cooler 75 ° days.

Batch 8 8-05-09

Ingredients:
2 1/2 Gallons well water
4 bags lipton black pearl tea
2 bags green tea
8 bags Oolong tea
4 cups sugar
We reduced the green tea and the black tea increased the Oolong tea and mde peace with the fizz.
We also noted that swing top bottles are easier to operate than the GT's screw caps.
this is making very tasty Kombucha.

Batch 7 7-31-09

Ingredients:
2 1/2 Gallons well water
6 bags black tea
4 bags green tea
4 bags Oolong tea
4 cups sugar
We added juice to this batch Broke a bottle sprayed the ceiling decided to cut the green tea to 2 bags and add 2 bags oolong to the tea inour next batch.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Batch 6 7-23-09

Ingredients:
2 1/2 Gallons well water
6 bags black tea
4 bags green tea
4 bags Oolong tea
4 cups sugar
I grew this SCOBY from a bottle of plain raw Kombucha.(not GT's). We did not like the flavor of the end product so I cleaned the vat rinsed theSCOBY with well water assembled the ingredients and added 1 1/2 pints of our other K-tea made with Laura's SCOBY.

Batch 5 07-21-09

Ingredients:
2 1/2 Gallons spring water
2 bags black tea
6 bags green tea
6 bags Oolong tea
4 cups sugar
1 pint left over from last batch
Comments
bottled with fresh raspberry juice
fresh ground ginger
fresh Mango puree.
All were delicious and way to effervescent.
Batch nine will have half the green tea see if we can keep thebottles from exploding!

Friday, July 17, 2009

Batch 4

Ingredients:
2 Gallons spring water
8 bags black tea
4 bags lemon ginger tea
3 cups sugar
1 bottle GT's original K-tea

Monday, July 6, 2009

batch 3 06-13-2009

Equipment:
One 3 Gallon Acrylic container
2.5 Gallon Stainless steel pot
16 recycled GT's bottles
4 small Perrier Bottles

Ingredients:
21/2 Gallons well water
6 bags black tea
6 bags Pu-er tea
2 cups white sugar
2 cups brown sugar
left 16 ounces+ in container

Method:
Boiled 2 quarts water, removed from heat, put in teabags, steeped 10 minutes, added sugar, accelerated cooling with frozen water bottles, when cooled to tepid put in brewing vessel while pulling S.C.O.B.Y aside , add 2 gallons of well water, the S.C.O.B.Y.. I tested the brew daily after the 5 th day. After 7 days I decided it was time to bottle.
I cleaned, rinsed and sterilized the bottles in a pressure cooker and we bottled 20 bottles. 2 plain, 8 with 1fl.os. of Bom Dia (Acai berry/blue berry juice), and 8with raspberry puree.
Put the bottles in the dark for 7 days then started to put them in the refrigerator 3 at a time for daily consumption.
Note: C. likes Acai berry best I prefer plain or Raspberry

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Batch 2 06-06-2009

Equipment:
One 3 Gallon Acrylic container
2.5 Gallon Stainless steel pot
12 recycled GT's bottles

Ingredients:
2 Gallons spring water
8 bags black tea
4 bags lemon ginger tea
3 cups sugar
left about 20 ounces in container

Method:
Boiled one gallon water, removed from heat, put in teabags, steeped 10 minutes, added sugar, let cool, when cooled to tepid put in brewing vessel, add other gallon of spring water, the S.C.O.B.Y, and 16fl.ozs. of GT's Original. Did the litmus test thing to make sure we were going acid. Found out my taste buds did the same and they let me know about the sweetness of the brew. I wanted to leave a little sweetness in to allow for fizz production. After 7 days I guessed it was time to bottle.
I cleaned, rinsed and sterilized the bottles in a pressure cooker and we bottled 16 botlles. 8 plain and 8 with 1fl.ozs of Bom Dia (Acai berry/blue berry juice).
Put the bottles in the dark for 7 days then started to put them in the refrigerator 3 at a time for daily consumption.
Note: By now C. and I are drinking about a pint a day. We started slowly as recommended by peple more experienced.

How it started

C. and I were shopping at Whole foods and saw a display selling bottles with the words "rejuvenate, regenerate, detoxify". We are at a stage in life where these words spark our attention.
The 10% discount really sealed the deal. A friendly attendant explained to us that it was a 2000 Year old Chinese brew.
We tried a bottle and were pleasantly surprised, it had fizz and it was not sweet nor alcoholic.
We bought our first case.
Once home I Googled Kombucha and was overwhelmed by the information available.
I decided to make my own K- Tea at as little cost as possible.

So here is the first batch
Ingredients:
2 Gallons spring water
4 bags black tea
6 bags green tea with ginger
3 cups sugar
1 bottle GT's original K-tea