Brewing kombucha tea, or Manchurian tea, is an easy process which only requires a minimal amount of time, some common kitchen utensils, and some basic knowledge about cultures and good hygiene. If you look after your mushroom culture and care for it properly it should last you a lifetime!
Brewing the kombucha tea is a simple process of boiling water and sugar solution, adding and steeping the green or black tea. Then allowing this mixture to cool to room temperature before adding the kombucha cultures. Once you have tried it a few times it will be a very easy process to remember. So Let's Get Started Brewing Your First Batch Of Kombucha Tea!
Brewing the kombucha tea is a simple process of boiling water and sugar solution, adding and steeping the green or black tea. Then allowing this mixture to cool to room temperature before adding the kombucha cultures. Once you have tried it a few times it will be a very easy process to remember. So Let's Get Started Brewing Your First Batch Of Kombucha Tea!
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What you'll need to get started brewing kombucha tea...
There will be a few items that you will need to gather before starting:
- A fresh kombucha culture starter, organic if possible. You can search the web for a starter or go here for a good organic source http://store.anahatabalance.com
- A pot to heat the water/sugar solution. This can be metal for this step.
- Distilled water (the best choice) or well water, never city water
- Cane sugar or other natural sugar, we suggest organic cane sugar
- Tea (Camellia Sinensis) - This may be green,white, or black tea, or a mixture thereof, we again suggest organic tea. Fruit tea and herbal tea will not work asthey do not provide the proper nutrients for the growing cultures. However, feelfree to add these to your finished product for added health benefits.
- A glass container for fermenting the tea solution (an old gallon pickle jar works great!) Here some people use plastic, if you do, make sure it is food grade plastic with a #2 symbol on the bottom. We always use glass container for safety reasons. Never use lead crystal, ceramic, or metal containers to ferment kombucha cultures.
- Clean cheese cloth (you can double this up if it seems to thin) or clean T-shirt, cut to size.
There will be a few items that you will need to gather before starting:
- A fresh kombucha culture starter, organic if possible. You can search the web for a starter or go here for a good organic source http://store.anahatabalance.com
- A pot to heat the water/sugar solution. This can be metal for this step.
- Distilled water (the best choice) or well water, never city water
- Cane sugar or other natural sugar, we suggest organic cane sugar
- Tea (Camellia Sinensis) - This may be green,white, or black tea, or a mixture thereof, we again suggest organic tea. Fruit tea and herbal tea will not work asthey do not provide the proper nutrients for the growing cultures. However, feelfree to add these to your finished product for added health benefits.
- A glass container for fermenting the tea solution (an old gallon pickle jar works great!) Here some people use plastic, if you do, make sure it is food grade plastic with a #2 symbol on the bottom. We always use glass container for safety reasons. Never use lead crystal, ceramic, or metal containers to ferment kombucha cultures.
- Clean cheese cloth (you can double this up if it seems to thin) or clean T-shirt, cut to size.
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http://www.kombu.de/gebe-eng.htm
I just wanted more info from you if you had any on using other sugars. PS Thank you for the pictures and the brewing info btw!
This is why I'm now trying to make it. If you want to try it w/o a lot of expense, I recommend trying one of the brands of these drinks you can purchase at a Health Food Store 1st, to try to get an idea of what it will tast like. only if your just drinking it staight, I would imagine it will be much stronger.
Different cultures have fermented lots of different stuff. Every once in a while some one got sloppy and contaminated his alcohol ferments. If the result was still palatable they kept doing it.
If you leave it sit for too long (like a month or more) the yeast will eat all sugar and convert it to alcohol, and the bacteria will convert the alcohol to vinegar. The result will be very similar to Apple Cider vinegar. Most brewers do not want their drink that strong, and mostly ferment for 7-14 days. This results in a drink somewhat like Apple Cider but with a tart edge to it (like drinking Cider with a vitamin C in your mouth). If you have ever made wine, or tasted a very young wine you will have noticed that the taste of it isn't as well rounded as a bottle that is a year or more old. This is because the tannins are still very much intact. Some brewers will bottle their Kombucha (sealed to slow down the yeast and bacteria growth) and let it sit for a number of days. The result is much more well rounded in flavour.
Other kinds of real tea can be used besides common black teas. The resulting Kombucha will have the qualities of the tea you start with. Black Tea Kombucha is somewhat astringent, but with a bolder flavour. Oolong Kombucha is less astringent and retains the sweet ginseng-like aftertaste. Green Kombucha has a more grassy, flowery flavour. Some describe the differences between black and green as being like comparing wine to beer.
I've looked at plenty, and booked marked them, but when I try to get back to this page,I have to go thru too many steps.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17174_p2.html
http://www.happyherbalist.com/second%20stage%20fermentation.htm