You Have To Start Somewhere

Store-bought Kombucha costs around $3.99 CDN here. I was averaging 3-4 bottles a week, so, as you can imagine, this has become a costly habit! Fortunately, Kombucha is cheap and easy to brew at home. All you need is the following ingredients:

Tea
Sugar
Water
Kombucha starter (from a previous batch)
SCOBY

Hold up, SCOBY? "SCOBY" (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) or "Kombucha Mushroom" or "Mother of Kombucha" is the culture that is needed to ferment the tea. I have been thinking of brewing my own Kombucha for a while, but the task of obtaining a SCOBY seemed daunting. You can buy them online from sites such as The Kombucha Exchange, Craigslist, and Etsy. If you have a friend who brews Kombucha, they might be willing to give you one for free. Better yet, you can make your own SCOBY from a mixture of sweet tea and store-bought Kombucha!

I am a bit of a control freak, so I decided to grow my own SCOBY using the method described here. I bought a bottle of Tonica Kombucha from my local health food store, and added it to sweetened tea. I used organic cane sugar, but you can use regular white sugar, as the SCOBY will consume the sugar and leave very little of it behind in your tea. I used equal parts Kombucha and Tea and stored it in a pickle jar (sanitize the jar in boiling water first! Make sure your work area and tools are clean!) in the cupboard above my fridge, which turned out to be an excellent location* for growing a SCOBY.

Since the conditions in the cupboard above my fridge are ideal, my SCOBY grew pretty fast! I was ready to start using it after 8 days. Temperature plays a huge role in the brewing time of Kombucha, as well as in the development of a young SCOBY. Kombucha likes a temperature of 70-85 ºF (21-29.5 ºC).


So, I was pretty excited about growing my own SCOBY. I had read about many successes as well as some failures on the internets, but I was determined to make it work. To my surprise and delight, I had a useable SCOBY after 8 days! This is the recipe I used:


1 (355ml) bottle Tonica Kombucha (original flavour)
355ml water
2 bags of green tea
1/4 cup sugar


Prepare a sweet tea using the water, sugar and tea bags and let it steep for as long as the directions say. Let the tea cool. Once the tea reaches room temperature pour it in your jar and, add 1 bottle of Tonica Kombucha. Cover the jar with a piece of cloth (make sure that the cloth is dense enough to keep fruit flies out) and a rubber band. Set in a warm, dry place, away from sunlight, and wait.

The first 2 days were pretty uneventful. A thin film was beginning to form, and there were some visible strands of yeast floating near the top. The next couple of days were interesting. There was some weirdness happening at the top of the jar and I debated throwing it out, but the experts on the internets assured me that it's supposed to look weird at this stage.

After 4 days, the film was quite noticeable!

After Day 6, there was a definite, solid SCOBY forming. I decided to name her "Lindsay".

By day 8, I decided that Lindsay was ready to begin her first Kombucha batch!

I was very pleased that my SCOBY was so easy to grow. I would recommend this method of procuring one to anyone who does not want to buy one, or feels uncomfortable acquiring one from a stranger on the internets.

* Kombucha needs a temperature of 70-85 ºF (21-29.5 ºC) to properly ferment. It should be stored in a warm place, away from direct sunlight. It is unnecessary to store it in a cupboard, as it needs air to "breathe". I keep mine in the cupboard above my fridge because there is a a huge gap at the bottom between the door frame and the ledge (my landlord is super-cheap!), it's warm because it's above the fridge, and it's the most convenient spot in my tiny kitchen.