Kombucha is a fermented tea that has been around for a darn long time. We’re talking BC time, peoples. It’s a for REAL old school brew.
Way back before you’d head to your local supermarket for your weekly stock up, people all over the world would brew their own kombucha. It’s a craft that has been around for centuries.
Since we’ve been honing this craft over our humble 12+ years in the booch brewing world, we thought we’d give you a run down on how to make kombucha and how you can brew your own at home.
How to make kombucha
We brew our kombucha the old school way, in small batches for 30 days. This is the way we’ve always made our kombucha, so it’s the way we’re gonna explain to you right here right now.
Step 1: Brewing the tea
The first step is to brew a big ol’ pot of tea. We use certified organic green and black tea to kickstart this process before we add organic sugar. You might be surprised to learn we start our brew with sugar, given every single drink we make is 100% sugar-free. You can’t ferment tea without sugar, but we’ll touch on what happens to this sugar a little later.
Step 2: Adding the wild kombucha culture/SCOBY
We then add our mother culture, AKA SCOBY, AKA fermentation starter, to the tea. The SCOBY is another key part of any kombucha brew. You can’t make kombucha without your own mother culture.
Step 3: Fermentation process
Then it’s time to set the clock and let the brew ferment for 30 days. We pop our huggable-sized pots in a temperature-controlled (warm… very warm) room, but this isn’t an absolute must. The environment definitely matters when you’re fermenting your own tea, but you don’t need all the fuss for your DIY brew. More on this later.
But to return to our last “more on this later” point, how does a tea full of sugar turn into a sugar free kombucha?
The easy answer is fermentation science! Without getting into the nitty-gritty of it all, the live culture consumes all the sugar. But it doesn’t just disappear. It gets converted into healthy organic acids (AKA short-chain fatty acids), the very same kind produced by our own gut bacteria to aid important body processes.
Step 4: Flavours
When the fermenting is all said and done, we scoop the thick layer of SCOBY off the top and add natural flavours to our brews. Kombucha, without the added flavour, can taste quite tart and sour. We still dig an original brew, but we find most booch drinkers dig a bit of fun, fruity flave these days.
So, we use 100% natural flavours to give our bevvies a fruity profile. From a classic orange flave in our Orange Squeeze brew to a truly berry-licious flave in Wild Berry, we craft our flaves to your tastebuds and get ‘em out in the world!
That’s the general process of brewing kombucha, with a bit of added Remedy spice! But how would you go about brewing your own kombucha at home? We’ve got a bit of experience in that arena, too, given it's how Remedy started.
Let’s walk you through it.
How to brew your own kombucha
INGREDIENTS
3.5 litres of filtered water
1 cup organic raw sugar
12g organic black tea (6 teabags)
12g organic green tea (6 teabags)
2 x small bottles Remedy Kombucha
METHOD
Step 1: Brewing the tea
Bring 3.5 litres filtered water to the boil. Add black tea and steep for 3 minutes. Add green tea and steep for a further 3 minutes. Strain tea into a 4-litre wide open mouthed jar and add sugar. Stir to dissolve. Cool to 30 degrees celcius.
“Black tea has a beautiful, rich profile but green tea is full of polyphenols,” says Remedy Founder, Emmet Condon.
Step 2: Adding SCOBY
If you have a mother culture (AKA SCOBY) and feeder*: Add kombucha feeder and place SCOBY on top of the liquid.
If starting from scratch: Add two bottles of Remedy Kombucha to the tea brew. Cover with muslin cloth and secure with an elastic band. Leave in a warm room away from food contaminants and direct sunlight for 7-10 days.
Step 3: Fermentation process
Depending on the temperature of where you live, your kombucha will be ready in about 7-10 days.
If you used an existing mother culture, your brew will have formed a "baby" mother culture.
If you used two bottles of Remedy to make the kombucha from scratch, your own mother culture will have grown along the surface of the jar.
Taste to decide if it's ready. The kombucha should taste slightly sour, with no tea flavour remaining. If you prefer a more sour taste, leave it to ferment for a few more days.
Step 4: Get it ready to drink
Remove mother culture (this can be used to make your next brew).
Transfer your finished kombucha into sealed bottles to keep in the fridge. Enjoy!
Check out the video below for a handy overview from our Remedy Nutritionist, Jacqueline Alwill.
