Kombucha

Several of my friends have been bugging me to start back with this blog, so here I am. I may go off the mission and talk about things other than food or cooking, but I'll give it another try.

I made Kombucha a couple of years ago, and then stopped. Well, I've started making it again. Kombucha is a fermented tea drink. It's undoubtedly an acquired taste. Think fruit and vinegar...I know that doesn't sound good, but it is. With my first batch, I used cranberries, orange peel, and ginger for the second fermentation. I think I used too many cranberries because man is that stuff tart. For a milder change of pace, I used pear and ginger for the second fermentation. This stuff isn't going to last long because it is so good. I'll go back to cranberries eventually, but I'll need to ease off on the amount. If you're interested in making it yourself, I'd recommend that you try some first. HyVee has some and most organic markets have it as well. Then if you like it, you'll need to get a scoby. The word SCOBY stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast. Think of it as Sour Dough starter. However, it looks and feels a lot more like snot.

But you remove the stuff prior to the second fermentation with the fruit, and then you strain it all. My recipe calls for 13 cups of purified water and a cup of sugar brought to a boil. Then brew 8 bags of organic Oolong tea for abou 15 minutes. Once it's entirely cooled to room temperature, add two cups of vinegar and the scoby. I cover the jar with a coffee filter and set it up out of the way on the ground floor where it's usually warmer. After two weeks, I take it down, transfer the scoby, which has usually expanded by then, to a new jar of tea. After removing the scoby, I add fruit that I've put through the food processor and cover it with a lid for a couple of days. You have to be VERY hygienic when making Kombucha. I sterilize my bottles and equipment with boiling water before I bottle any of it. Once it's been bottled, it'll need to be refrigerated because it hasn't been pasteurized. But please, read a book on the subject. Don't try to make this just off of my recipe. This isn't as simple as whipping together a cake.