- Welcome to "You Brew Kombucha",
this is your quick-start guide
to making homemade kombucha.
I'm Angelica, and today
I'm gonna walk you through
how to make one gallon
of kombucha at home,
or anywhere, I don't really
care where you make it,
but I'm gonna teach you how
to make a gallon of kombucha.
The kombucha process typically
is split up into two phases;
first fermentation, and
second fermentation.
During first fermentation,
you take your sweet tea,
and you inoculate it
with some starter liquid
from a previously brewed
batch of kombucha,
and you add a culture called a SKOBY.
It typically takes about a week,
or maybe a little bit longer,
but at the end of a
successful first fermentation,
you end up with kombucha
tea that's unflavored,
and largely uncarbonated.
If you want to have that carbonation,
and if you want to add
any additional flavoring,
you're gonna have to go through
a second fermentation process,
which I'll cover in another video.
But for the time being, we're
just gonna focus on getting
one gallon of kombucha
tea ready and prepped.
So, let's get started.
Since kombucha is basically
just fermented sweet tea,
we're gonna start off by
making a big batch of tea.
I have four cups of filtered
water boiling on the stove,
and to get started, add
two to three tablespoons
of black, unflavored,
plain, loose leaf tea.
And 3/4 of a cup of organic cane sugar.
Then go ahead and add your boiling water.
I'm using a french press,
but if you don't have a french press,
you don't need to worry about it,
you can just go ahead boil your water
in whatever pot or kettle
you usually use to do that.
And then strain your tea
leaves out with a strainer.
It doesn't really matter
when you add your sugar to the process,
as long as is gets in there at some point.
But I like to add it
when the liquid is hot
so that it dissolves more easily.
So, go ahead and let that
steam for about 15 minutes.
I know it sounds like a long time,
but we're basically
making a tea concentrate,
and the longer you let your tea steep,
the more nutrients will get
extracted into the water
to feed your starter tea,
and to feed your culture.
Don't worry about being super
precise on the measurements,
this is a basic guideline
that you can use.
Some people like to add more sugar,
but I really don't recommend adding
any less than 3/4 of a cup per gallon,
because the sugar is really
important for the culture.
Once your tea has been
steaming for 15 minutes,
Take your brewing vessel,
and add
8 cups of cold, filtered water to it.
This is what you're going to use
to dilute your concentrated tea
that's been steeping in the french press.
The reason why we're
making a concentrated tea,
and then diluting it after the fact,
is because you want to
get that temperature down,
to a good range for the SCOBY to live in.
The first time I made
Kombucha, I didn't do this.
I went ahead and just boiled
a big batch of water to make my tea,
and it took forever for it to cool down.
And I didn't know whether I
could stick it in the fridge
to let it cool down faster,
which you can, by the way.
But because I was a first timer,
and I didn't know whether
I was allowed to do that,
I ended up waiting around
for my tea to cool down
before I could put it,
before I could put my SKOBY in there.
Now, to save all of that hassle,
I go ahead and make a tea concentrate,
then have a bunch of
water ready to dilute it,
and get it down to a good temperature.
And temperature's really important,
because you want to make
sure that your sweet tea
is above 65 degrees, and below 90 degrees.
Any hotter than that,
and it could kill it.
Any lower than around 65 degrees,
and you could put your
SKOBY at risk for mold.
This looks like it's
right around 87 degrees,
which is great.
You can go ahead and add your starter tea
from a previously brewed
batch of kombucha.
So, starter tea is just another term for
a previously brewed batch of kombucha
that's gone through a
successful first fermentation.
If you're getting your SKOBY
from a reputable source,
it should come with a
good amount of starter tea
for you to get started
brewing your own kombucha.
Starter tea is really important,
it's actually more important
than the SKOBY itself.
That starter tea is what's
gonna acidify the kombucha
and drop it to a low enough pH,
so that it won't be susceptible
to mold or other harmful pathogens.
So, make sure that before
you get started, you have
a good amount of strong
starter tea available to you.
If you don't have enough starter tea,
or for some reason, you have a SKOBY
that doesn't have starter tea,
you can just go to the store and buy
some raw, unflavored kombucha,
and use that to bump up
the amount of starter tea
you have for your batch of kombucha.
Just whatever you do, don't use vinegar.
There are a lot of sites out there
that say that you can use
vinegar to help drop that pH,
and use it in place of starter tea,
it is not an okay
substitute for starter tea.
You can check out my video on top mistakes
that kombrewers make for
more information on that,
but just remember, vinegar is not okay.
So we've already got two cups
of good strong starter tea in here,
we're ready to add the
SKOBY, and we're almost done.
So, this is a SKOBY,
from a previously brewed
batch of my kombucha.
You can just go ahead and add it in there.
It doesn't really matter
if it sinks or floats.
For the most part, it'll
just kind of bob around,
and then it'll float to the
top in the next couple of days.
When you're ready, go ahead and cover it
with a tight-weave cotton cloth.
Any old cloth will do.
If you have a handkerchief,
an old t-shirt,
just whatever you have on hand,
even a coffee filter would work,
as long as the weave is tight enough
to keep dust and insects out of your brew.
Now, just secure it with a rubber band,
and for the most part,
you can just leave it alone
for the next week, or so.
How easy is that?
So go ahead and stash this somewhere
away from direct sunlight for about
a week to a week and a half.
That's about how long it takes
for my brew to develop
that nice, acidic tang.
In the meantime, make sure
that you check out my videos
on what to expect during the
first fermentation process,
and how to know when
you're ready to bottle.
You can also find a lot more
details and resources at
YouBrewKombucha.com
Happy brewing!
