How To Make Amazing Homemade Kombucha

Kombucha is nothing that new. It has been around for years and it’s some people’s healthy gut juice, and what’s even better, you can make this at home. Here let’s look into it.

What is Kombucha?

Kombucha is a fermented drink made with tea sugar, bacteria, and yeast. This ancient drink dates back to 220 bc! This fermented tea is believed to help prevent and manage various amount of health conditions. It contains vinegar, B vitamins, and a number of chemical compounds. It’s a great way low-calorie beverage that tastes amazing and you can make it easily at home. ¹

Why is Kombucha Good For You?

• A potential source of probiotics ²
  • Kombucha is a type of tea that has been fermented. This makes it a good source of probiotics and has many of the same health benefits as a probiotic.
• May provide the benefits of Green tea
  • Making it from green tea may offer the same health benefits as green tea itself. You can read about matcha, a type of green tea, and its benefits here.
• Rich in antioxidants
  • Studies have shown that kombucha is full of antioxidants that have protected the liver from toxicity in rats.
• Can kill bacteria
  • Rich in polyphenols an acetic acid that has been shown to suppress the growth of undesirable bacteria and yeast.
• May reduce heart disease risk
  • It’s been shown to improve cholesterol levels which might protect against heart disease.
• May help manage type two diabetes
  • kombucha has improved several markers of diabetes including blood sugar levels.

How to make homemade Kombucha

While it can be easy to purchase kombucha at the local store it’s something completely different when you make it yourself. If you’d like to learn how to make it your self read below to find out more. ³

What you need

• 7 cups of water
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 4 bags of black tea
• 1 cup of unpasteurized unflavored store-bought kombucha
• A large 1-gallon glass or ceramic container
• Tightly woven cloth (coffee filter, paper towels, napkins, cheesecloth)
• Rubberband
• Large pot for boiling water

Make Your Scoby

A scoby is a collection of bacteria and yeast is a pellicle that forms on top of the tea. It starts each batch while also protecting the kombucha from dust and debris. You can buy it online or easily make one.

Steps To Make Scoby

1. Bring water to a boil. Remove from heat and dissolve sugar into it. Add the tea bags and allow them to steep for at least 20 minutes.
2. Cool tea to room temp
3. Add starter
   • Pour the sweetened tea into your jar. Then pour the store-bought kombucha in. Make sure to include everything (including the junk at the bottom) in the bottle.
4. Cover with a few layers of woven cloth and secure with a rubber band.
5. Ferment
   • Set somewhere dark and still and room temp. 70 to 75 F for 1 to 2 weeks until a 1/4 SCOBY has formed.

You can leave the SCOBY in that liquid until you’re ready to use it. When you’re making you’re SCOBY make sure you only use black tea, it’s not decaf, and no honey.

1st Fermentation

Need

• 14 cups of water
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 8 bags of black tea or green tea
• 2 cups of unflavored kombucha either from the previous batch or store-bought
• 1 Scoby
• 1 gal glass jar or ceramic container
• 1 tightly woven cloth
• Large pot for boiling water

1. Bring water to a boil. Remove from heat and dissolve sugar into it. Add the tea bags and allow them to steep for at least 20 minutes.
2. Cool tea to room temp.
3. Empty the jar with clean hands and transfer SCOBY to an equally clean pot.
4. Rescue 2 cups of the liquid the SCOBY was growing in (the starter Kombucha is fine) discarding the rest.
5. Add starter. Pour the sweetened tea into your jar then pour in unflavored started kombucha with clean hands place SCOBY in a jar.
6. Cover with a cloth and secure with a rubber band.
7. Ferment
   • set in a dark spot that keeps at room (70-75 temp) for 6-10 days. Begin tasting after 6 days, by drawing it out in a straw, don’t use your mouth. The warmer the air the faster it will ferment. The longer it ferments the less sweet it’ll be because the sugar will be eaten up.

Notes

You can use other teas. Fruit teas should be mixed with black so the SCOBY can get what’s needed to thrive.

If the SCOBY gets really thick about one inch you can peel it apart and save it for another batch.

2nd Fermentation

Needs

• Home-made Kombucha from 1st batch
• Sweetener (fruits, honey, sugar)

Mix ratio

1 cup of Kombucha to :

• 1 to 2 tbsp of mashed fruit or juice.

• 1 to 2 tbsp of honey.

A few flip-top fermentation bottles. That needs an air-tight seal or canning jars. Canning jars are fin but they will lose carbonation over time.

Second Batch

1. To bottle the kombucha funnel it into an air-tight bottle leaving about 1 1/2 inches at the top.
2. Let it ferment somewhere dark and room temp.
3. You can strain out the fruit if you want, or you can place it in the fridge if you want to slow the carbonation process and chill it.
4. It is common for jars to explode if the pressure gets too high. While you’re getting the hang of everything bottle a portion of your kombucha in a plastic bottle. When the bottle gets rock hard the rest is probably done and it’s ready to be burped. You burp them by opening them to release some pressure then refrigerate them to slow the fermentation.
5. If you want to ferment the tea faster keep the temperature warmer. It will also ferment faster when there’s more fruit and sugar.

I can’t wait for you to try this and make sure to let me know how it went!