After 8 days of waiting, my first batch of Kombucha is ready for consumption!
I'm really thrilled with the result. It's really good. It's pearly, tasty, strong, it basically tastes just like the GT stuff you get at the healthfood store in the States.
Here's how I did it:
I ordered a Kombucha culture online, as well as a large earthenware container. I chose a 10 liter one, I won't need that much volume right away, but I might later on.
First, you have to wash all containers and tools with boiling hot water, cleanliness is very important, since the culture is a living thing.
I boiled water in the largest cooking pot I have, which holds about 2,5 liters. I added 5 teabags of green tea (I used Sencha), and let them steep for about 5 minutes. You can use loose tea of course, but this was what I had in the house. Then I let the tea cool off to room temperature, you never want to add the Kombucha to hot or warm water. This takes several hours, at some point I poured the water into the earthenware container. When the water was at room temp, I stirred raw sugar into it, you can use between 100 - 125 grams per liter. The sugar is very important as the culture lives off it, it doesn't make the tea sweet - unless you add lots more. Then you add the Kombucha culture, with the lighter side up, along with the starter liquid. Fasten a kitchen towel or other clean cloth on top, make sure it's well fastened so no flies or such can get into the container. I used a piece of yarn, a large rubber band would be good too.
Then you let it sit for 8 to 14 days, supposedly the longer it sits, the sweeter it gets. In the summer, it can be ready in as much as 6 days. So temperature is a factor. The container should not be moved during this time.
Of course I had to check at the earliest date possible. I washed several glass jars and bottles (I always have a bunch of those on hand, since I'm a big believer in reusing things, and those often do come in handy) in water that I had boiled in the kettle, along with the cooking pot, funnel, soup ladle.
When I removed the cloth from the container, the contents looked very strange. Turns out, my culture had a baby, which was floating on top, spread thinly over the whole thing. I ladled some of the liquid into a bottle. Now was the moment of truth. The taste-test. And what can I say, it was perfect. Just the way I like it. I proceeded to fill the liquid into jars, then I put the culture onto a deep plate, with the baby culture on top, to put aside while starting on the next batch. I will discard the baby culture later, it looks like it had been doing most of the work and looks worn out.
This is the box in which the earthenware pot was delivered, a box in a box. Looks like they ran a LOT of recycling paper and cardboard through a shredder to make their own cushioning material.
Edit: Here's the (German) site I ordered the culture from, it has a lot of info on everything Kombucha: http://kombucha.de. And this is where I ordered the earthenware container: http://www.steinzeug-schmitt.de. The one I got is the 'Einmachtopf.'
Here's how I did it:
I ordered a Kombucha culture online, as well as a large earthenware container. I chose a 10 liter one, I won't need that much volume right away, but I might later on.
First, you have to wash all containers and tools with boiling hot water, cleanliness is very important, since the culture is a living thing.
I boiled water in the largest cooking pot I have, which holds about 2,5 liters. I added 5 teabags of green tea (I used Sencha), and let them steep for about 5 minutes. You can use loose tea of course, but this was what I had in the house. Then I let the tea cool off to room temperature, you never want to add the Kombucha to hot or warm water. This takes several hours, at some point I poured the water into the earthenware container. When the water was at room temp, I stirred raw sugar into it, you can use between 100 - 125 grams per liter. The sugar is very important as the culture lives off it, it doesn't make the tea sweet - unless you add lots more. Then you add the Kombucha culture, with the lighter side up, along with the starter liquid. Fasten a kitchen towel or other clean cloth on top, make sure it's well fastened so no flies or such can get into the container. I used a piece of yarn, a large rubber band would be good too.
Then you let it sit for 8 to 14 days, supposedly the longer it sits, the sweeter it gets. In the summer, it can be ready in as much as 6 days. So temperature is a factor. The container should not be moved during this time.
Of course I had to check at the earliest date possible. I washed several glass jars and bottles (I always have a bunch of those on hand, since I'm a big believer in reusing things, and those often do come in handy) in water that I had boiled in the kettle, along with the cooking pot, funnel, soup ladle.
When I removed the cloth from the container, the contents looked very strange. Turns out, my culture had a baby, which was floating on top, spread thinly over the whole thing. I ladled some of the liquid into a bottle. Now was the moment of truth. The taste-test. And what can I say, it was perfect. Just the way I like it. I proceeded to fill the liquid into jars, then I put the culture onto a deep plate, with the baby culture on top, to put aside while starting on the next batch. I will discard the baby culture later, it looks like it had been doing most of the work and looks worn out.
Edit: Here's the (German) site I ordered the culture from, it has a lot of info on everything Kombucha: http://kombucha.de. And this is where I ordered the earthenware container: http://www.steinzeug-schmitt.de. The one I got is the 'Einmachtopf.'
I added links to the sites I ordered the Kombucha culture and the container at. For some reason they don't hyperlink.
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