KOMBUCHA! Oooh-ah-ha-ha, Oooh-ah-ha-ha

Following suit with the fermented drinks, I'm moving on to kombucha in this post.  Every time I say "kombucha," I picture the scene from Finding Nemo around the aquarium volcano...

From what I've discovered, it seems more people know about kombucha than kefir.  This was not the case for me.  I heard about milk kefir first, and upon buying my milk kefir grains, I discovered there was a kombucha drink somewhere out there in the world.  I think I had possibly heard of it by glancing at the drinks in the health food store, but I had definitely never tried it.  I honestly don't know how my friend, and I started talking about kombucha one day, but I remember her saying something along the lines of, "Man, I LOVE kombucha!  It has this addicting, sour flavor, but you get used to it...and, it's expensive!"  The first kombucha I came across after talking to Kelly, I bought...and loved.

Normally, I stay away from flavored drinks because 1) I simply don't crave them, and 2) they're usually high in calorie, and I can think of many other ways I'd love to spend those calories.  At any rate, my friend started my researcher's wheels to spinning, and I discovered, like kefir, all the benefits kombucha had to offer.  Click HERE for a general kombucha overview and HERE for an addressed F.A.Q. to learn more.  I am, by no means, an expert on the nutritional profile or value of kombucha, but there's a load of information on the net regarding kombucha, so help yourself to the Google man!

Addressing my issues:
1) I don't crave flavored drinks

Kombucha isn't really like a flavored drink.  It's not very sweet, it's sour, it's carbonated, and it taste nothing like a traditional sweetened tea, juice, or soda.  A while back, I started drinking a raw apple cider drink, and kombucha tastes a lot like that.  It's pretty vinegary...but, that's also the reason people looooove it.  

2) Flavored drinks are usually high in calorie 

Kombucha is not!  You see, just like in kefir, the bacterias and yeasts feed on the sugar in the original liquid used to make the product.  By the time fermentation is done, the sugar amount is greatly reduced.  For example, a 16oz bottle of GT's Original Kombucha has 60 calories and 4g of sugar.  16oz of CocaCola, on the other hand, has 191 calories and 53 grams of sugar.  That's a great difference...I was shocked.  Plus, kombucha is filled with healthy goodness; coke is not...duh.

I was ready to start making kombucha as I also discovered this stuff was expensive at $3/bottle!  First, I needed a scoby.  In attempt to avoid having to purchase a scoby, I hit the interwebs like a desperate black-market hippie.  I asked around on natural food forums and freaked everyone out on Facebook.  Fortunately, a FB friend who knew nothing about scobies or kombucha provided me a link with how to GROW a scoby from an existing bottle of commercial raw kombucha...SCORE!  HERE'S the article.  Later, I discovered there were many different sources on how to grow a scoby, all with the same basic technique.  So, to growing a scoby I went!  Refer to the above mentioned articles for details on the process.  Here are a couple pictures of my progress in growing a scoby...

My first vessel was too large, and I knew it was going to take forever for a full scoby to form over the large surface area, so....

...I took those forming scoby bits and moved them to a smaller jar (quart size), and voila!  A fully formed scoby formed in about a week! *EXCITEMENT*

Now, that I had grown my little (3in diameter?) scoby, I was ready to try a gallon batch of kombucha!  Simply google "make kombucha," and a myriad of sites will come up.  It's a very simple process and pretty standard across the board.  Here are a few good links:

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-kombucha-tea-at-home-173858
http://www.foodrenegade.com/how-to-brew-kombucha-double-fermentation-method/
http://www.culturesforhealth.com/kombucha

So, I brewed up a gallon of English Breakfast tea, added 1 cup of sugar, pour it into a gallon glass jar (seen as the "too large" vessel mentioned above), added the scoby and the kombucha liquid it was sitting in, covered it with a paper towel and rubber band, and...WAITED...very impatiently...peaking very often despite the suggestions to not...and, waited some more. 

After seven painful days of waiting, I finally reached kombucha!  Here are some pics of the growing scoby...

Scoby during batch 1

Scoby during batch 2

Scoby at end of batch 3

Yes, it is disgusting, but it's also super fun and cost-effective to make.  All three of my batches have been successful.  I start tasting it with a straw around day 5 or so, but you can also smell the distinctive vinegary kombucha essence when it's getting close to being ready.  I like to let mine ferment until it is much less sweet than when originally started, has that vinegary sour taste, AND when it has started carbonating on its own.  Once this has happened, I dispense the kombucha into bottles with juice (grape is my current fave) added in a 1:4 ration (juice being the lesser value) and cap off for a second fermentation to build carbonation (like kefir post) for 2-5 days.  FYI, I drank a bunch of clear bottled beer and bought a bottle capper!  I feel so cool...

Try it out!  It's fun!  PLEASE don't hesitate to e-mail me ("e-mail me" button on home blog page) with any questions you come across while brewing this awesome healthy drink!  I swear I don't bite ;-)