Second Brew - Bottling

January 28, 2011 - Bottling

Did not get a chance to check this much, so I was hoping that the booch would be good.  Tonight it just started to change from sweet to sour, so I knew the time was right.

And then there were three.

The baby scoby is the one on the left. Hannah's is the pretty one on the bottom.  Not sure why my scobies look so poor, I'll have to get a little more scoby advice going forward.  The new one on the left is in a few shreds, not looking healthy at all.  Hopefully she'll get better

On my own this time, no flavor packets from Hannah.  Since the ginger really stood out on the last batch, I wanted to incorporate it as much as possible.  Making 3 flavors:

Dark Red Cherries. If you can identify them, let me know.  This time of year at Kroger, they are just labeled "cherries".

Lemon and Ginger has been a popular flavor in twitter-land.  I'm showing rind here, but I also made a bottle with lemon slices instead.  I want to see which is better.

My daughter brings these home from school all the time.  Never seems to eat them, so I thought I would try them as well.  In this pic I show slices, but I also grated rind to compare the two

My spigot is slow.  Its a personal issue.

One glass left which I shared with Maddie over ice.  Actually she only took a sip, she claimed it had a winey taste to it.  Which just dawned on my how she knew what wine tasted like hmmm.

Clementine/Ginger - ounce of Clementine juice, 3 slices of clementine, 3-4 cubes of ginger

Open - February 4 - Just OK, same as the others, too light on the ginger.

Dark Cherry - 5-6 cherries pitted, chopped up

Opened - February 12 - Sour cherry. Big Fizz, very good. Nice dark read color.

Lemon/Ginger - ounce of lemon juice, rind of 1/2 lemon, 3-4 cubes of ginger 

Open - February 3 - Almost no fizz, way too lemony, almost no ginger.  Drinkable, but barely

Dark Cherry - 5-6 cherries pitted, chopped up

Open - February 4 - Very good, nice and red. fizzy. Very tart.

Lemon/Ginger - ounce of lemon juice, 3 lemon slices, 3-4 cubes of ginger 

Open - February 12 -  Better, crazy fizzy, but still too tart, and needs more giner

Clementine/Ginger - ounce of clementine juice, grated rind of 1 clementine, 3-4 cubes of ginger 

Open - February 10 - Mildly fizzy, good, but needs more ginger.  Mild orange flavor

Inaugural Kombucha Brew - Bottling

January 13, 2001 - Bottling

Tasted the booch, and it was prime to bottle.

As I was told, my scoby got "busy" and made another one during this process.  These things are rather weird, but its what makes it work.  Not sure what I'll do when I build up a collection of these.  For now, I just have the pair.

On to setting up the bottles;

I'm using the three flavors that Hannah provided, POM (Pomegranate juice) for 2 of the bottles, then I plan to leave one unflavored to try and get the taste of the plain Kombucha.

Bottling was a relatively easy process, the spigot on the "Target" vessel was pretty easy for this

I decided to label the caps, and then document the flavors.  I used the following:

Plain - No flavors added

Opened - January 21 - Light fizz. Awesome taste, nice color. Possibly add a little sugar on the next one to get some fizz 

KK Flavor - Organic Elderberry Rose Petals

Opened - January 26 - Very fizzy. not very sweet, mildy sour. nice flavor. Slight essence of the flowers. very mild.

KK Flavor - Organic Chai Spice 

Opened - January 26 - Decent fizz, but very spicy, not my favorite.  Too much spice flavor

KK Flavor - Organic Gojiberry Organic Ginger

Opened - January 23 - Best fizz of the batch, very "gingery". Not sure what the Goji berries added from a flavor perspective, but this is the best one of the batch so far

POM - 1/2 cup POM Pomegranate juice.

Opened - January 17 - Light fizz, very nice. Good pomegranate flavor 

POM - 1/2 cup POM Pomegranate juice

Opened - January 22 - Better fizz than first one, probably due to longer 2nd fermenting. Very good, maybe too much POM flavor, if done again, may cut back on the amount used

Second Brew

Saturday, January 16

Lesson learned on this batch.  Do not pour scalding hot water into a (I assume) cold container.  Otherwise you may hear a "pop" and this may occur:

This delayed my next brew, as I needed to take another trip to Target.

Sunday, January 17

Ingredients

• 5 spoons of Lychee Black Tea
• 1 cup 365 Organic Sugar
• Original KK Scoby, and new offspring

New batch started today. Used some existing black tea.

Hopefully this doesn't suck.  The tea looked reasonably well.  Nice and dark.  I made a little batch in my tumbler, and although it looks nice and rich, its rather mild for as dark a tea as it makes.

Learned lesson, and steeped tea and sugared in the pot

35 Minute steep, and added sugar.  Poured remaining 8 cups of water in the newly christened vessel, and then added the sweet tea.

Note that I'm not a professional food blogger, or else I would have cleaned up a wee bit.  Notice the small monkey on the counter.  This will now be known as my Hanuman batch.

My new scobies in the new home.

As always, Snow White stands vigil.  See you in a week.

Inaugural Kombucha Brew

Brew started Sunday Jan 2, 2011

Ingredients

• 1 batch KombuchaKamp organic tea
• 1 cup KombuchaKamp raw sugar
• 1 SCOBY from KK

Boiled 4 cups water, disolved sugar, added 8 more cups cold filtered water and added SCOBY

Covered with the supplied cloth and tucked away for safe keeping

Update Sunday Jan 9, 2011

Tapped the brew and tried the raw Kombucha.  Still tasted very sweet, but there was some slight essence of vinegar starting to evolve.  Will let rest for 7 more days.

Picked up case of swing top bottles (brown)

Update Wednesday Jan 12, 2011

Was advised by Hannah to check more frequently.  Tasted again, still a little sweet, but more tang.  Will sample nightly from here on out.

Update Thursday Jan 13, 2011

Time to bottle.  Slightly sweet, acidic, some good sourness going, but in a perfect state.