Freedom, Wisdom, Power & Magic
Hi yall! I know that making your first brew can feel intimidating and that we can worry about poisoning ourselves by doing it wrong. Let me put your mind at ease and walk you through the steps to making your own brew. Once you do it the first time – you will be amazed at how easy, fun and rewarding it is! Not to worry ❤
Ingredients:
Kombucha scoby
2 cups kombucha
1 cup Black tea
1 cup Hibiscus tea (optional)
1/2 kilo raw brown sugar (panela)
Large glass jar (preferably with a pour spout)
Brew a super strong tea (I add my tea to the cold water, bring it to a rolling boil and then turn off the heat) Add sugar and stir
Let cool completely before pouring into the jar (very important so that you do not crack your glass jar or scald your sweet little scoby – ask me how I learned this part haha)
Place scoby into the tea with clean hands
Say some kind of blessing to make a connection with your scoby
Cover lid of jar with cheesecloth or a thin fabric and tie with a string
Place in a dry place in your house where it will be undisturbed
Wait and watch the magic start to do its thing. You will see small bubbles starting to form right away
The scoby will turn the sweet tea into kombucha in about 5-7 days depending on how hot it is in your house
You can drink the kombucha like this or you can do a second fermentation to flavor and carbonate it (my favorite!)
Second fermentation process:
Make a juice from sweet fruits and fruit jam. Blend 4 cups of juice with 1-4 tablespoons of marmalade and/or herbs/spices.
Fill a 1- liter bottle with half kombucha and half the juice and jam mixture and seal tightly. Carbonation will begin immediately and again depending on your climate – it can really bubble up in as little as a day with lots of heat or as long as 10 days if it’s cold. It’s just about personal preference at this point so you can experiment with the flavor combinations. This makes 4 one liter bottles of finished kombucha. Make sure that you leave at least 2 inches of space in the neck of the bottle to allow space for the carbonation to grow. Also make sure to let the air out of the bottles once a day to keep them from exploding, and put them in the fridge when they have reached your desired level of carbonation.
My own bias aside, everyone who has tried my kombucha tells me it is the best they have ever had. My secret is ultra aggressive sugar via fruit jam – it does something absolutely magical. Enjoy ❤
My absolute favorite combination is blueberry/peach/mango/pear juice with blueberry jam
Peach juice with peach jam or rose jam
Pear juice and rose jam
Blueberry juice and rose jam
Apple juice and blueberry jam
Apple juice and rose jam
You get the idea – its hard to go wrong here!
If you cannot find a kombucha scoby from a friend or pro, you can create your own. Just buy a bottle of kombucha and empty it except for about an inch of liquid at the bottom. You want to choose a bottle of kombucha that has a lot of sediment in the bottom of it – “the mother”. Cover the jar with some fabric and a string and wait for a gelatinous layer to form. This will be your new scoby. Make the tea extra strong and sweet to grow the scoby into full size so that it fills the large glass jar.
When you are filling your bottles with kombucha for second ferment, leave about 2 cups of kombucha in the jar with the scoby to mix in with your new sweet tea and encourage the fermentation process. Its actually more difficult to mold your scoby than you would think – unless it is actually fuzzy, its probably not mold.
I hope this is helpful and helps to make your first brew less intimidating! Im here to support you too if you have any questions