Fermentation fun

Making ALL of the drinks!

May 29, 2024

“What the heck is that?”

White. Slimy. Rubbery. Floating in brownish liquid in a little bag.

Wez had brought with him, all the way from Melbourne, the golden ticket to delicious beverages on tap. A scoby!

Yes, it looks kinda gross. However, don’t let appearances deceive you. This mother has kept us flush with delicious kombucha for almost a year.

It’s not the same mother, but probably her daughter or grand-daughter (or great great great grand-daughter). We had one go mouldy a few months ago and had to start from scratch.

Now, it’s a weekly ritual to brew the tea, prepare the bottles, and make a whole new batch for the family.

Making kombucha

For the uninitiated, kombucha is a fermented tea drink that’s supposedly got a bunch of great benefits for your gut health. But who cares about that; we just drink it because it’s delicious!

We purchased a 10L jar and started making around 9 litres per week (it ferments quick here in the heat). Recently, we got a second jar, and now production is around 18L per week. I’m not quite sure where it all goes…

Here’s the recipe that Wez passed onto me:

First ferment

Scoby + 1-2 cups of kombucha
5g of loose leaf green tea per litre
50g raw sugar per litre

Heat the water on the stove to boiling.
Once boiled, kill the heat and add the green tea.
Allow to steep for 10 minutes and remove the tea leaves (I use a tea strainer or a sieve, if there’s some left in there no big deal, they will get strained out later).
Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
Wait until it’s cool, strain through a cheese cloth into your big jar.
Add in the scoby and starter liquid.
Leave for a week and taste; if it’s got that vinegary-kombucha kick, it’s ready for second ferment. If all you can taste is tea and sugar, leave for longer. In cooler climates, it may take longer, up to 2 weeks.

Second ferment

Add your brewed kombucha to sterilised bottles. I find glass works best, but plastic soda bottles work fine as well if you’re not leaving it in there for too long.
Make sure you leave some kombucha with your scoby in the big jar for the next batch!
Add your different flavourings to your bottles.
Seal and leave on the shelf for a day or two to ferment some more. When you open and get a good fizz (and like the taste!) chuck it in the fridge to slow fermentation.
Pour out and enjoy!

Second fermentation flavour ideas:

Apple + vanilla - add 1/4 apple sliced and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Ginger + lemon - slice and add a 3cm piece of ginger plus a few slices of fresh lemon (note that the lemon seems to stop the kombucha from going fizzy, so it will be a bit flatter than the others)
Vanilla chai - add 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 cloves, 2 peppercorns, 5 whole coriander
Mango + mint - add 3-4 slices of fresh mango and a decent sized sprig of mint
Orange + cinnamon - add 1 cinnamon stick and a few slices of fresh orange
Pineapple + mint - add a few slices of fresh pineapple and a decent sized sprig of mint
Dried fruits - add a small handful of cranberry, fig, apricot or raisins

There are plenty of recipes out there for berry and stone fruit kombuchas, unfortunately those fruits are really hard to find here (and bloody expensive when you do), so I haven’t been able to make any!

Making a ginger bug

The garden here is full of fresh ginger, so I also experimented with homemade ginger ale. This is another wild fermented beverage with plenty of health benefits.

I followed this recipe to create a ginger bug and then followed some of the recipes from this blog. The creamy soda was a clear winner!

When we went back to Australia, my ginger bug went dormant. I’d like to get it started again, this time using fresh honey from our bees.

(I also may have purchased some champagne yeast from Australia, so the next experiment is hard ginger beer)

Mead making

We have the bees, we have the honey. I really want to give mead a go. Still in the process of researching a recipe. I feel like the honey here is so precious, I don’t want to sacrifice a kilo of it to a dud batch.

Some failed experiments

I spend a lot of time on Reddit looking at recipe ideas, and sometimes get a bit excited about trying new flavour combos. Here are the ones that got reactions ranging from “not a fan” to “that actually tastes like vomit”.

Grapefruit kombucha - great on paper, in reality was pretty disgusting.
Anything with chilli - I’ve tried mango + chilli, pineapple + chilli, ginger + chilli. None of these tasted any good. I’ve given up on chilli.
Lemon - getting a lemon kombucha to ferment seems nigh on impossible.
Vanilla pods - zero flavour, waste of some good vanilla.
Ginger bug with store bought fruit juice - it wasn’t disgusting, but it wasn’t great either.

All right, back to the kitchen to finish bottling 18L of kombucha. Wish me luck!