Pssshhhhhtttt……… Now that was the sound of success! The glorious sound of effervescence when the bottle cap was twisted off! And the taste? I’d say it was pretty close to store bought flavours (before starting our own brews we had purchased a number of bottles, to edge into our memories what kombutcha was meant to taste like and to also collect the empty bottles for re-use).
In my opinion, this was how I remembered the non-flavoured kombutcha taste to be (although my wife thought it was a bit too sour for her liking). For batch 4 we’re going to brew it for fewer days with Toby our Scoby and reduce the primary fermentation to 5 days, rather than the full week to see if we can reduce the sourness.
The key to our success in batch 3 was the week we allowed the secondary fermentation i.e. pouring the kombutcha into bottles and allowing the yeast to do its thing as it sat unrefrigerated for a week, before chilling and enjoying!
So if you’re keeping track of our progress, here are the steps to success:
Ingredients: 1 litre water, 2 teaspoons of green tea, ¼ cup sugar, 1 cup starter and your scoby.
Method: Boil the water and allow the green tea leaves to infuse for 15 minutes before removing the leaves.
Then add sugar and allow the tea to cool all the way down. Then pour the 1 litre of tea into your jug with your 1 cup starter and scoby. Cover jug with a cheese cloth and allow to sit for 5-7 days.
After 1 week, pour the kombutcha into 330ml twist top bottles and allow to sit in a cupboard for a week (1L will make 3 330L bottles).
After a week, place into the fridge and enjoy cold!
Four Senses: Touch Smell Taste Sound
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