My Adventures in Brewing Kombucha (& How You Can Do It, Too)

I went from questioning kombucha, to loving kombucha, to brewing my own kombucha—with a few road bumps along the way.

Read the whole article, or skip around to particular sections:

1. Why I wanted to make my own kombucha
2. What you to need to know before you get started
3. How to make it: the easy parts
4. How to make it: the hard parts
5. Storing your SCOBY
6. Flavoring and bottling
7. More resources

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Why I wanted to make my own kombucha:

Fear is born from ignorance, and before I understood what kombucha is or how it's made, I was skeptical—if not terrified.

At over four dollars a bottle at Whole Foods (do you know how much corn that can buy?!), kombucha had never been something I was tempted to splurge on. I thought of it as a drink that was, mysteriously, appealing to both hippies and socialites. It often involved chia seeds. I was not interested. Moreover, my friend Rebecca was brewing her own, and her SCOBY—the greyish-white liver-like mass that is the yeast and bacteria "mother" of the fermented tea—looked more like an exhibit in a museum of medical mysteries than a beverage.

But when I finally decided to taste kombucha, I understood the fuss: With its sharply sweet vinegary flavor, kombucha is everything tart and delicious about shrub but more sippable—and fizzy! (There are lots of purported probiotic health benefits, too, but I was less interested in health and more interested in taste, saving money, and having a pet project of my own.) 

I decided to go the hippie route rather than the socialite route and make my own kombucha at the Food52 offices. I was scared at first. Actually—fueled by my uncertainty about what to expect—I was scared throughout most the process. And since I was embarking on a new project in front of my colleagues, the project was particularly high-pressure. The editorial team watched me tear up when I had to throw away an entire SCOBY due to fly infestation; they dealt with my frantic text messages and emails, my constant sighing and head scratching. 

Was it worth it in the end? Yes. Not only for the bottles of kombucha in the refrigerator (which, for the record, taste much better than even the fanciest store-bought varieties), but for the feeling of accomplishment. This became "Sarah's project" at the office—my legacy. I even talked with Ali Slagle, my partner in crime, about dropping everything and starting a kombucha company. (We decided against it.) Evidenced by the length of this post, I clearly learned more than I expected, including a whole new lexicon of words and phrases like "'buch," "starter," and "second fermentation."  

If you start searching for information on making kombucha, you might find yourself going down a rabbit hole. Hey, maybe you'll see me down there! There are a million ways to brew kombucha and a million tips for how to get the healthiest, tastiest brew possible. I'm going to explain what worked (and didn't work!) for me, but I'm sure I'll be experimenting and refining in the future.

* * *

A few basics before you embark:

• Kombucha is fermented tea with a history that dates back thousands of years. It's made by adding a SCOBY (a symbiotic colony of yeast and bacteria—similar to the vinegar "mother") to sweetened tea. 
  
  
• Be prepared to spend some time and money on this project. You're in it for the long haul: Depending on the length of your fermentations, your first batch of kombucha will take around 1 1/2 to 2 weeks from starting to enjoying. And once you've started, you'll (hopefully) have a viable SCOBY, which means you'll want to start a new batch each time you've finished up the current one. Although none of the items or ingredients you'll need for kombucha are prohibitively expensive, you will need to buy the proper jars, along with tea, sugar, and tea towels.
  
  
• And, most importantly, you'll need to obtain a SCOBY from a source you trust, be it a reputable website or a kombucha-brewing friend. Our SCOBY, which we named "SCOBY Doo," came in the mail from the home of my good friend Rebecca in Cleveland, along with her instructions for brewing (pictured below), which I followed to the letter. I recommend brewing with a friend, so that you can ask them as many questions as possible at all hours of the day. I can be this friend. (I might even send you a SCOBY!)

* * *

Here's how I made it:

The first steps are very simple—brewing, sweetening, and cooling tea.

1. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a 4-quart pot. Turn off the heat and add 6 to 8 tea bags. Steep for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

• I didn't use organic tea, which some sites recommend, and instead of loose tea—which might be easier to guarantee is high-quality—I went with a mixture of black and green tea bags. 
  
  
• I even used a couple bags of Earl Grey when I was running low on other options. That worked, too! 
  
  
• Herbal teas cannot be made into kombucha, but I am excited to experiment with oolong and rooibos—both of which work as base teas—in the future. There is an almost overwhelming amount of information on all the different types of teas that can (and can't) be used for brewing kombucha. I'll read up for my future batches.
  
  
• I didn't use water that had been purified in any way and I didn't see negative consequences. You'll see resources online that will advise against using tap water, but I didn't notice harmful effects.

2. Remove the tea bags and add 1 cup of organic cane sugar and a half-gallon (8 cups) of cold water. Stir to dissolve the sugar granules. 

• I used organic cane sugar and turbinado sugar. Both worked, but finer sugar will dissolve more easily into the tea.
  
  
• If you want to explore using other sweeteners—like brown sugar, honey, or agave—I'd recommend first referring to this chart, as some sugars are harder to work with than others.

3. Pour the cool tea into a glass brew jar (the biggest jar you can find—a 2- to 3-gallon jar is best), then add 1 to 2 cups of cold water. It's important that your tea be close to room temperature by the time you add the SCOBY—warm tea might harm it. 

• In addition to glass, you can also use ceramic, stainless steel, or wood.
  
  
• Many resources will tell you not to clean your jar with soap, as it could harm the SCOBY. I did clean with soap, but I made sure to rinse very thoroughly before adding the tea. If you do not want to use soap, you can sanitize the jar (and any other equipment) with white vinegar and hot water.
  
  
• Use a wide-mouth jar: It's better for air circulation and it will make it easier to remove the SCOBY later on.

4. When the tea is below 90° F (which it almost surely will be at this point), pour in the SCOBY and 1 1/2 to 2 cups of the starter liquid that the SCOBY arrived with (or, if this is your second time around, that the SCOBY was stored in after you bottled the brew).

• If your SCOBY didn't come with enough liquid, you can supplement with plain/original-flavored store-bought kombucha. The first time I brewed, I used the liquid that the SCOBY came with as well as 1 1/2 cups of Synergy Organic Raw Kombucha because I was nervous. The SCOBY seemed to grow very quickly with the help of the starter liquid.

  

Here comes the more nerve-wracking, nail-biting, and, ironically, hands-off part of the procedure!

5. Now that your SCOBY is in the tea, you have to cover the jar so that the precious SCOBY is neither vulnerable to contamination nor suffocation.

• Rule #1: Do not, under any circumstances, use cheesecloth. With our first SCOBY, I secured two layers of fine cheesecloth over the top of the jar with rubberbands. Everything seemed fine; the SCOBY grew across the top of the tea nicely, forming a thick layer, and the whole jar gave off a sweet, vinegary scent.
  
  The first time I unwrapped the cheesecloth to taste the brew, however, I noticed a fruit fly flit from the direction of the jar. I convinced myself that it had just come from somewhere nearby. The next day, I pulled back the cheesecloth and another fly emerged, straight from the SCOBY this time. When I examined the SCOBY surface, I saw squirming, the signs of fly larvae. The whole SCOBY had to be tossed, I cried, and Rebecca sent another one in the mail. (We named this second SCOBY "SCOBY Doo II," and this is the SCOBY modeling in the photos.)
  
  
• Fruit flies, as I learned firsthand, are the most common contaminants of kombucha, and you might see them circling your brew like evil vultures, eager to poison your SCOBY. To prevent flies, use a tea towel—or an old T-shirt—held in place by several rubberbands. The tea towel is woven much more tightly than cheesecloth and will therefore be more effective at keeping out flies. Store your jar in an environment that's as fly-free as possible (not near the bowl of ripening stone fruit, for example). I kept the kombucha at the editorial desk, where I could act as monitor, shooing flies away on the regular. 

6. Wait and watch. Once your SCOBY is in the sweetened tea—shrouded comfortably with a tea towel and living in a location that's under 90° F with good air circulation and little direct sunlight—it will be 1 to 4 weeks until it's ready to drink.

• You'll watch the SCOBY grow into a thick, leathery, white mass across the surface of the tea.
  
  
• You also mght notice some discolored spots (which you can see in the top-right photo below). When I noticed these dark spots, I had a panic attack. Mold is the second serious threat to your SCOBY.
  
  
• Fortunately, it's not that difficult to distinguish mold from natural dark spots (which result from normal dying yeast cultures). Mold will look like the stuff you find on aging bread and cheese rather than brown strands or masses (here is a helpful reference). If you suspect mold, you'll have to throw out your SCOBY and start again. 

  
 
The two images on the left show the SCOBY once it was first placed in the brew jar. The two images on the right were taken 10 days later, once the SCOBY had grown across the top of the tea.

7. After one week, gently push the SCOBY aside with a straw and take a sip of the liquid. If it's as tart as you'd like, you're ready to proceed to the next step. If you want kombucha that is sharper and more vinegary, allow the tea to ferment for more time.

• I found that I liked how our kombucha tasted after 10 days of fermentation.

8. When you're happy with the flavor, move the SCOBY to another large jar with 1 1/2 to 2 cups of the brewing liquid (this will be the SCOBY's home, and you'll use that liquid to start the next batch). Cover with a tea towel and rubberbands, just as you did before, and set aside.

• Now you're wondering what to do with this SCOBY. The next logical step is to start another brew! Make more tea, then use that SCOBY in your second batch of kombucha—that's the only road I've taken so far.
  
  
• You can also separate the SCOBY layers and give one to a friend. It might not be what your friends wants for his birthday, but he'll surely appreciate it, right? You'll want to make sure that you gift the SCOBY with enough of the brewed tea so that it will survive and so that your friend has a starter for step #4. Be sure to bug your friend to make the kombucha as soon as he can. 
  
  
• I don't have any experience storing SCOBYs, but Kombucha Brooklyn recommends storing the extras in a jar in the refrigerator, submerged in tea, where they will go into a dormant state. When you want to start brewing again, your SCOBY might be sluggish for the first few cycles, meaning that it might take some time to achieve the flavor you're looking for. You can also store a SCOBY (or take a break from brewing) by leaving it in a full batch of tea at room temperature for up to 6 weeks. Over time, the tea will become too acidic to drink, but you can use the SCOBY in a subsequent batch. Learn more about taking a break from brewing here.

9. Now collect bottles. These should be glass bottles with plastic tops, such as old kombucha bottles or flip-top brew bottles. When the tea is transferred to smaller bottles, it enters a second fermentation and becomes "drier" (less sweet) and—this is fun—carbonated. 

• It's important not to use any bottles with metal tops in order to prevent the chance of any reaction between the kombucha and the metal.  If you want to use Ball jars, you'll need to get plastic tops to cover them.
  
  
• I also tried one glass-topped Weck jar, but it wasn't sufficiently airtight. 
  
  
• To gauge the cabonation levels in the bottles, I used one plastic bottle, as well. The plastic bottle is your guide to carbonation: It becomes increasingly solid and pressurized as the kombucha ferments; when it's rock-solid, that's an indication that the tea in the glass bottles will be bubbly. 

10. Once you have several suitable empty bottles, you'll also want to think about flavors. Thrilled that the kombucha was fly-free, mold-free, and good-tasting, I was happy to leave it as is. But Ali helped me realize how fun it can be to play with flavors. 

It's important to remember not to go too crazy with the add-ins (I had to reign in Ali more than a couple of times): Introducing additional sugar in the form of fruit or fruit juice during this second ferment might result in too much pressure build-up and a consequent explosion.

Here are the flavors Ali and I have tried so far: 

• Hibiscus: three or four dried flowers 
• Grapefruit: about 2 tablespoons of grapefruit juice, with the pulp; this was delicious, though you will see online that many suggest using juice with no pulp to reduce the number of stringy bits that will be in the finished product
• Ginger: a 1-inch piece, cut into matchsticks
• Rhubarb lime: lime zest and diced rhubarb; too tart for my taste
• Blueberry lavender: about 1 teaspoon dried lavender and 2 or 3 frozen blueberries
• Rose petal: about 1/2 tablespoon of dried rose petals
• Orange saffron: a pinch of saffron and a strip of orange peel

11. Add your flavorings of choice to the bottles, then use a plastic funnel to pour the tea over top. You'll want to fill your bottles almost to the very top (in the picture below, I didn't fill the bottles high enough). The fuller your bottles are, the more carbonated they will become. If you see your bottles are vigorously bubbling, you can "burp" them by opening the tops to release a bit of pressure. 

12. Once the plastic bottle is very firm—this took about 3 days for us—move all of the bottles to the fridge, where they'll stop gaining fizz. (I prefer to err on the side of caution, so I was eager to refrigerate the bottles sooner rather than later.)

When you're ready to drink the kombucha, open a bottle under a bowl or in the sink to avoid getting soaked from over-active carbonation. If you're going to be unappetized by strands of SCOBY and bits of your flavorings (or if you're serving this to people who have never tried kombucha before), you can strain the drink through a fine sieve to get a more homogenous beverage.

From left to right: hibiscus, grapefruit, and ginger kombucha.

Need more kombucha information? Here are some sites I found most helpful:

• How to Make Kombucha (Food Renegade) 
• Choosing Ingredients for Making Kombucha (Cultures for Health)
• Frequently Asked Questions about Brewing and Maintaining Kombucha Tea Cultures (Organic-Kombuca.com) 
• Tea and Kombucha: What to Use and What to Avoid (Kombucha Kamp)
• How to Bottle Kombucha Tea (Whole Lifestyle Nutrition)
• How to Increase Carbonation (Kombucha Kamp)
• Making Fizzy, Fruity Kombucha: The Second Fermentation (Nourishing Days)
• How to Flavor Homemade Kombucha Tea (YumUniverse)

Are you a kombucha brewing expert with tips to share? Or are you a first-timer ready to start a fun experiment? Share with us in the comments below!

Photos by James Ransom and Bobbi Lin  

Tags: Alcohol-Free Drinks, Long Reads, Advice, My First Time, DIY Food