Category: 003. Kombucha Journal

9 August, 2019

Wow! It’s been a while in-between drinks, a fermented tea that is……

We have most certainly still been enjoying our Kombucha brews, but it’s been a long while since we’ve tried a new flavour though. But our latest concoction was a mandarin-infused Kombucha.

Makes 3 bottles.

Ingredients:

3 Pieces of mandarin peel (1.5 inch by 1.5 inch)

3 Slices of Mandarin flesh

Directions:

Step 1: Slice each mandarin peel into thin 1 inch match-sticks (be sure to keep each peel’s match sticks in its own portion).

Step 2: Dice the mandarin flesh into little chunks and add the diced flesh and strips of peel to their respective bottles.

Step 3: Add in Kombucha, fresh from its week of fermentation.

Step 4: Allow Kombucha to undergo its secondary fermentation in the bottle.

Step 4: Refrigerate after a week of secondary brew.

And then enjoy a mandarin infused Kombucha, perfectly tart and perfectly tasty!

We’ve done it! We’ve found the perfect balance between fermentation time, secondary fermentation, and balance of new and old brew.

So here are the steps: 1L Green Tea; ½ Cup sugar; your 1 Cup starter; and Scoby.

Allow to ferment for 5 days, then pour your brew into 330ml bottles and top off with unfermented brew (from your next batch) just so that the bottles are full. Then allow sit in a cupboard for 7 days for the secondary fermentation, and 3 hours before consuming, pop them into the refrigerator.

The outcome was a perfect balance of sweetness, sourness, and effervescence! Nailed-it! It has taken longer than expected (4 batches) to reach the perfect balance, but we eventually got there! Follow these steps and you’ll hit the mark on your first try!

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!