- Welcome to You Brew Kombucha.
This is your guide to continuous brewing
versus batch brewing.
If you've poked around
any kombucha home brewing
sites recently you might have heard about
this process called
continuous brewing, or CB.
I do batch brewing so all of the
tips and tricks and
processes that I talk about
on my channel and on my website relate
to batch brewing and
not continuous brewing,
so don't be confused because
a lot of the processes
are often very different between the two.
Continuous brewing is similar to the first
fermentation cycle in a batch brew
in that you are using
a vessel which houses
your sweet tea and a SCOBY and you're
harvesting it regularly
to flavor or to drink.
The difference is the
continuous brewing vessels
are oftentimes much
larger than your average
one gallon standard batch brewing vessel,
and continuous brewing vessels also
have a spigot so that you can harvest
your liquid right from that spigot.
In continuous brewing the SCOBY stays
in that continuous brewing vessel
and you basically just
let it grow and grow.
Since the SCOBY is staying in that vessel
for an extended period of time,
some continuous brewers
even leave it there
up to six months without trimming it,
or without splitting it
up or anything like that,
since the SCOBY is
getting bigger and bigger,
and stronger and stronger,
it actually takes
less time for your kombucha to go
through a first fermentation cycle.
And since your kombucha is gonna be
going through that
first fermentation cycle
faster that means that you're gonna need
to be harvesting your
kombucha more frequently
or continuously, hence the
name, continuous brewing.
When you're continuous
brewing, you use that spigot
to harvest an x amount of kombucha tea
which you then immediately
replace with sweet tea.
So every time you harvest
kombucha from your
continuous brewing vessel you need
to add more sweet tea to replace
the amount that you've pulled away.
I'm not a really big fan
of continuous brewing
and the main reason why
is because with a large
continuous brewing vessel the kombucha
in that vessel will tend
to sour a lot faster
than if I was doing a batch brew.
So even though I'm able
to continuously harvest
kombucha out of that batch it just means
that I'm doing more work over a spread
out amount of time to make sure
that I bottle that kombucha before
it gets too sour in the vessel.
I prefer batch brewing because it gives
me a lot more control over when
I bottle my kombucha and when I'm done
with the first fermentation cycle.
In a continuous brewing vessel
because the SCOBY is just
getting larger and larger
and because the tea ferments a lot faster
it could potentially
get too sour too fast.
With continuous brewing you have
a harder time of making sure that there's
an even distribution of yeast throughout
your kombucha before you bottle,
And it's because of the spigot.
Because you're pulling from a spigot,
that liquid is coming from the bottom
of the container which is where
yeast tends to settle, so unless you're
making sure that you're stirring your
continuous brewing vessel before you
pull any kombucha tea out of the
spigot you might risk having an
uneven distribution of yeast or
an overabundance of
yeast in your kombucha.
And also with continuous brewing you run
the risk of having an overabundance
of yeast on your actual SCOBY.
If you're not checking
on your SCOBY regularly
like you are in batch
brewing where you have
to remove the SCOBY and take it out
and put it into another container to start
a next batch going, you might run the risk
of having a SCOBY that's
overloaded with yeast.
So that's another risk you have to look
out for if you're doing
continuous brewing.
And to me, it's just not worth it and it's
a lot easier to just do it
on a batch by batch basis.
So when might continuous brewing
be a good option for you?
So if you like the
taste of first fermented
kombucha tea, and if you're
not really interested
in flavoring it or building up that good
carbonation in the bottle,
is then you can just
harvest kombucha from
the continuous brewing
vessel pretty much
whenever you want and then
just feed it a few times
a week with some sweet tea
to let that sweet tea turn into kombucha.
That's a really great
way to use a continuous
brewing system if you're
not interested in flavoring
or bottling, but if you're
like me and you really
love to flavor and
bottle, I like doing all
of my flavoring and bottling all at once,
so when my batch brews
are done I have a big
bottling day where I
juice all of the fruit
that I wanna use and I blend all
the fruit purees that I wanna use
and then I go ahead and bottle.
But with continuous
brewing, if your kombucha
is getting too sour on an irregular basis
or if you find that you need to harvest
your kombucha every couple of days or so,
then it might be hard to do one
big flavoring and bottling day.
You might just have to have flavorings
on hand throughout the week and do smaller
batches of bottling from your
continuous brewing system.
Now that I have the hang of how long
it typically takes my
first fermentation vessels
to be ready to bottle, I can
schedule my bottling days.
So there are a lot of pros
and cons to batch brewing
and continuous brewing,
and depending on your
lifestyle and depending on what you're
looking for in kombucha, one method might
be better for you than the other.
It really is just up to your personal
preference and your lifestyle.
I happen to be a really
big fan of batch brewing,
it provides a really
consistent, good kombucha
and it lets me bottle on my schedule.
So just know that if
you're out there looking
for research, know the difference between
continuous brewing instructions
and batch brewing instructions,
and make sure that depending on what
you're looking for, you're following
the right instructions for you.
So thanks for watching, if you want
more information be sure to check out
the other videos on my channel
and go to YouBrewKombucha.com,
happy brewing!
(poppy new age music)
