Brewing 10 Bottles of Kombucha for the Price of One?

[Music] I've been drinking kombucha for years now and before I was ever making it at home from scratch I was buying a ton of it at the store and it still blows my mind how expensive kombucha is and how much money I was spending on kombucha when it really just cost a few bucks to make like a dozen of them at home so today we're gonna head over we're gonna cross the canal head over to that store right there which is a big-ass Whole Foods in Brooklyn buy a store-bought kombucha and I'm gonna show you how to multiply it for just a few bucks [Music] all right so here we go 385 for one kombucha and my goal is to multiply this by maybe 10 or 12 or the same price of one and just remember if you are trying to multiply this at home you need to get a kombucha that's organic that's raw that's not pasteurized because through the manufacturing process some kombucha companies pasteurized their kombucha they don't have the live cultures you need to grow a Scobie from scratch so just make sure it's organic raw and it's not pasteurized so the first step is accomplished we've got the proper store-bought kombucha it's organic its raw and step 2 is growing a Scobie from scratch the scoby is that weird little slimy thing that grows on top of your kombucha sometimes you'll see them in the bottle so those little floaty things those are baby scobie's and you don't actually have to do this step to make more kombucha you pour this right into sweet tea boom your tea is gonna ferment you're gonna have more kombucha but if you want to make really good kombucha at home it is good to grow a Scobie from scratch first before you move forward because this is a fermentation process and fermentation is alive it's very environmental so you want to get your kombucha used to your environment you want to start it up before you really make your final batch so to grow a Scobie from scratch it's actually pretty simple you're gonna take two cups of water bring that to a boil and you're gonna steep two black tea bags in there just let those sit for around 15 minutes until they are properly brewed and extracted and I'll take those tea bags out and add 1/2 a cup of sugar and make sure that is completely dissolved by just stirring that around there should be plenty of residual heat to dissolve the sugar and then you want to make sure that comes to below 90 degrees so you can stick an ice cube in there if you want to speed that up or just let that cool naturally cause if it's too hot you will actually kill the rawness of this kombu chai and you won't be making any kombu at home and then once it's cooled down a bit just pour in a full bottle of your organic raw kombucha now make sure you cover your brewing vessel whatever that is make sure it's covered tightly I use a cloth so nothing can get in there but air can still escape basically all that we've done is taken a kombucha that's ready to drink that's fully fermented and we're feeding it we're feeding it with the sugar and the tea so it has food to reproduce to grow this Scobie so that's it we're just gonna let that sit in a warm place kombucha likes a warm environment ideally around 80 to 90 degrees and let the yeast and bacteria perform their magic so as you can see I'm not my apartment right now I'm in my studio but we do have a Scobie this has been hanging out for about 10 days and thing is this Scobie you'll see it's not pretty at all and I'm actually happy it turned out you know in this form it's all rickety and I'll messed up check this out it really is not much it's just like a few globs and that's alright I've made scobie's in the past where they're perfectly round and beautiful but sometimes when you're starting up and the scoby is getting used to the environment maybe you're rattling this thing around a little bit just like I was doing I was transferring it to the studio it disrupts the the surface growth and it's not going to be beautiful but in the Kombucha world we tend to put a little too much emphasis on a beautiful Scobie when the truth is it doesn't really matter that much it's more about the liquid if you have a thriving colony of yeast and bacteria in here and it's a strong starter that's what matters the most and that's what we have here it's a strong starter it's very sour so you can see the scoby right here I mean there's a few pieces but it's really not much but it doesn't matter that's all we need so I'm gonna take a clean cup and just sample some of this give it a smell super strong very strong smelling which is a good sign that's actually not bad and we won it extra sour not necessarily on the level of vinegar yet but close to it not kombucha that we want to drink which is the point we want a strong starter liquid so when we go to make this next batch which we're gonna do right now it brews us a really great bash so what I'm gonna do is just pour off all of this cuz we're pretty much starting over with this starter liquid and that Scobie in there and then we're gonna brew about this thing holds just over a gallon of liquid so we're gonna brew another batch a full batch of kombucha right now and then we're gonna add this starter liquid to the fresh sweet tea to ferment the kombucha so to make the kombucha all we have to do is make a fresh batch of sweetened tea and I'm gonna use some black tea because that's the most common tea use for kombucha and it can handle a high temperature so it's great for beginners kombucha I'm gonna use five teabags for one gallon of kombucha here and I'm just gonna tie those up so they stay secure together so next we have to boil some water to steep our tea and I'm using the concentrated tea method so it doesn't matter exactly how much water you boil we're actually gonna add more fresh water on top of that later on bring your water to a boil and then just let that sit for 30 seconds and then you can drop in your tea and let that steep for 15 minutes now in the meantime we can clean off our jar just to give it a fresh start then we can add our sugar and it's 1 cup of sugar 4 1 of Kombucha [Music] once your tea is done steeping you can remove those teabags and just let them drip for a few seconds and then pour your hot liquid over the sugar and let that dissolve give it a few stirs so it dissolves right into that hot liquid so our tea is dissolved in here and the reason I like teaching the concentrated tea method is because we don't have to wait around for this to cool as long as your jar is marked off the volume is marked off now all we have to do is pour in our filtered water and get us right up to that gallon mark and because you use the right amount of tea you know you're good to go so we're up at a gallon I'm gonna let it cool down a little bit because this isn't that much liquid so it's still a little hot and the scoby is definitely in harm if it goes above 90 95 degrees so I would let this cool down to at least 85 degrees before you add in your Scobie all right our tea is cooled off and just take a look at the difference in color right here that's pretty dramatic you have this light brown fermented kombucha and then this black tea obviously this is super dark and what's happening in the fermentation is the bacteria and yeast are feeding off the purines in the tea which lightens it up so that's a very good sign that you've properly fermented kombucha if you're using black tea and it turns to this shade of brown so now it's time to add our starter I'm just gonna add about a cup in there and make sure there goes the scoby just popped right in give that a stir and then pop on a cover make sure you don't use cheesecloth you want something that's gonna keep everything out except the oxygen it needs some airflow because this is both an anaerobic anaerobic fermentation a very unique fermentation it needs oxygen getting in but you definitely don't want fruit flies getting in there as well so just a nice cotton cloth will work well so this kombucha is ready to ferment gonna take around seven to ten days for the first batch and kombucha is a tropical ferment so it likes warm temperatures so if it's room temperature in your house find a place that's warmer or put it on a heat mat or better yet a heat wrap would be great to get it around 80 to even 90 degrees that's when it's really gonna thrive and taste the best and just take a look at this this is my Scobie hotel right here so you can see these are some serious scobie's they're nice and thick they look pretty well as pretty as a Scobie can look and we don't have that yet and that's totally fine but this kombucha is gonna work its way up every single time it's gonna adapt to the environment it's gonna get a little stronger and the scoby is gonna grow thicker so we should get a nice layer of Scobie in the next seven to ten days and I'm gonna check in on this every few days so I'm at this campsite in Long Island and I've been on the lookout for some wild edibles some wild fruit for my kombucha and I just found the mother lode these are all wild raspberries and blackberries I've been picking a bunch this will be perfect for the Booch save a little cash [Music] [Music] [Music] boom it's been about eight days on our kombucha fermentation you can see we've got a nice layer of Scobie right here the liquid has turned from that dark black tea color to a lightish brown color which is a great sign that your fermentation is happening and the scoby you know it's not like thick like these but this is the first time we're brewing kombucha so it's gonna take time to work its way up but most importantly when you taste this liquid its acidic with a little bit of sweetness left as well and carbonation is the number one question that I get when it comes to kombucha everyone wants a perfectly carbonated kombucha and it's difficult to tell when your kombucha is done fermenting when it's ready to carbonate there's no recipe that can tell you there's no machine that can tell you you have to know what to look for what to taste what to smell which is why I created an entire QuickStart guide to brewing perfect kombucha at home you can click the link above it's completely free and I go into detail on that process how to tell when you're ready for carbonation and how to properly carbonate your kombucha every single time at home so click the link above or below to get that QuickStart guide and we're gonna get to bottle carbonating this is where our kombucha gets very exciting because not only do we get to add a fizziness to our beverage but we get the addition of flavor at this point and it's awesome when you do it at home because you can choose whatever flavor you want flavors that you can't find in the store and the way carbonation works we're taking our fermented kombucha which has some residual sugar left over then we're adding more sugar with the addition of fruit we're trapping that in a bottle so the yeast continues to eat the sugars and the byproduct of that fermentation process is co2 and we are trapping that co2 in this bottle and creating carbonation so what I do first is take out my Scobie and save at least a cup of starter liquid for your next batch now you've got to add your flavoring to your bottles I use these nice flip-top bottles they're perfect for carbonating because they release some gas pressure if it builds up and I'm gonna start with that wild raspberry juice and I'm just gonna pour a bit into each of my bottles and then I also have some ginger because ginger is super cheap and the spiciness really is a great addition to your kombucha cuts some of that sourness and then another flavor I thought would be nice is some melon because I had a bunch of melon left over and I'm trying to get rid of it so I sliced up some melon and then I sliced up some jalapeno cuz I had one lying around I thought a spicy melon kombucha sounded really interesting and once those bottles are filled up then you're just gonna top it off with your fermented kombucha and pop those tops back on [Music] as far as knowing how many bottles you're gonna fill up I generally just wing it you can of course break it down by ounces and do the calculations I was off by just one kombucha right there you can just drink that plane if you don't have the ingredients or the bottles or just fill up another bottle [Music] so check this out it's been about three days I just left for the weekend if I pop open this right here well see all of that carbonation it just kind of sprayed out you can see the bubbles there so these things are ready to go in the fridge and they'll cool down a little bit when I say cool down the carbonation will settle just a little bit but this one right here wow that's not bad it seems like there's a little less sugar in this wild raspberry one so I'm just gonna let back go for another day and it should be perfect and I'll pop these in the fridge all right so I've waited one more day on the raspberry and ginger oh yeah Wow okay now this is ready to go you can see that right there so I'm just gonna pull these and I'll put them in the fridge but I'll do the actual taste test right now okay so we've got wild raspberry and ginger right here and we have cantaloupe and jalapeno I'm very excited for both of these I like serving my kombucha on the rocks just because I like drinks on the rocks I like ice so we will start let's start with this one right here the cantaloupe we'll see how that all right not too crazy on the carbonation you can see the carbonation has mellowed down a good bit on this one which is nice you know it's still fizzy the smell is insane the jalapeno hits you right away damn you know there's a tiny bit of spice there but the jalapeno is more just an aroma in essence throughout the drink which I really like this one tastes like you're drinking a cocktail like if you ordered some spicy margarita it's the closest I've ever gotten a kombucha it tastes like a cocktail without adding any alcohol so that is a great cocktail replacer these flavors alright moving on to this one might be a little crazier on the carbonation so I'm just gonna yeah it's always nice just lean it oh my god see I didn't put this in the fridge to let that carbonation settle so you can see it's a little over carbonated but not too bad whoa very excited for this one right here wild raspberries never tried that in my home bucho I like that it's not too sweet which is nice the raspberries were a little more tart but it came out really nice and it's incredible the difference between these two flavors same fermented tea same kombucha just flavored differently and we have look at the colors on those it's what makes kombu just so fun it turns it from just a fermented tea that's healthy for you to something really special so I hope this video helped you out it took you along on all of the steps remember if you want more details on carbonation and really getting your kombucha game to the next level click the link above for my kombucha QuickStart guide if it goes super in-depth on certain processes to get you in a great place in your kombucha brewing game and remember to follow me at length by Mike G because I'm posting all of my crazy fermentation and food experiments in this studio so I'll see you next time stay cooking

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 786,183

Rating: 4.9294543 out of 5

Keywords: how to make kombucha, kombucha guide, intro to kombucha, beginners kombucha, brewing kombucha at home, make scoby from scratch, scoby making, cheap kombucha, flavor your kombucha, how to flavor kombucha, complete guide to kombucha, store bought kombucha, is kombucha healthy, bottle kombucha, kombucha small space, apartment kombucha, fermenting kombucha, kombucha steps, mike greenfield, pro home cooks

Id: lq-yNxMB8Do

Length: 18min 29sec (1109 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 27 2019