How to make your own kombucha

Two organic apples, one organic beet, one organic swiss chard leaf and some walnut butter.

This was my snack at work. It's just cantaloup, chia seeds and coconut milk. 

This was my lunch. It is a sandwich packed with almond butter, cashew butter and strawberries. So tasty!

For dinner, I had a sandwich with fresh red pepper hummus, avocado and nutritional yeast along with some boiled brussels sprouts. 

Now, on to the kombucha. This was fun to make! I will try to give you all the instructions and just let me know if you have any questions. 

Rahjah always wants to be in all the pictures :)

This is a picture of the SCOBY growing.

This is the best picture I have of the SCOBY right now. It is suppose to be kept in the dark for another three weeks, so I didn't want to bother it too much. 

SCOBY instructions:

1. Buy a bottle of Original Synergy Kombucha. Make sure it is original, no juice added. Also you will need a large glass jar (I had an old milk jar), caffeinated green tea (black is also ok), organic cane sugar, cheesecloth (or something of the like), and a rubber band.

2. In glass jar, pour two cups of boiling water, two teabags of your choice of tea and one Tbsp sugar. Let it steep for at least 10 minutes. 

3. Remove tea bags. Allow your mixture to cool COMPLETELY to room temperature and then add bottle of kombucha. (I like to let my bottle of kombucha reach around room temperature first.)

4. Cover your glass jar with cheesecloth and rubber band. Now, place your bowl somewhere warm and dry. Let this sit for two weeks! After the two weeks has passed, if you do not plan on brewing kombucha with your SCOBY right away, then store your SCOBY in the fridge.

How to brew kombucha with your own live SCOBY:

1. In stainless steel pot, boil half a gallon of water.

2. Remove from heat and add about 3/4 cup of organic cane sugar. Stir it in with a METAL spoon. Unfortunately, substituting anything for sugar does not work well with kombucha. So no agave, honey, stevia, splenda, etc. 

3. Add your choice of caffeinated tea. You can use any kind including flavored for this step. I use loose snap dragon green tea, but you can really use anything as long as it's caffeinated. If you use loose tea, make sure to have some type of mesh infuser so that there are no tea leaves inside your kombucha.

4. Now, steep your tea for at least 4 hours. You want it to get really strong. 

5. After the 4 hours, pour your sweet tea into a glass jar large enough.

*Do not use metal beyond this point. It reacts poorly with the SCOBY.*

*Also, if you plan on touching the SCOBY at all, make sure that your hands are VERY clean.*

6. Pour your starter SCOBY into the jar with your sweet tea. You are going to want most of the liquid from the SCOBY jar to be drained out before plopping the SCOBY in the the sweet tea. 

7. Place the cheesecloth over the top of your jar and make it tight with the rubber band. Now, tuck your kombucha away in a warm dark spot. NO DRAFTS OR SUNLIGHT.

8. You can brew it between 3 weeks to a month. It all depends on how strong a flavor you want. Also, keep in mind that if you live in a warmer climate, it will brew faster so cut the brewing time in half. 

After a few weeks:

9. First off, you need to remove the SCOBY. Every time you brew, the "mother" (which is the original SCOBY) grows a "baby". These two are actually identical in every way, so you will not be able to tell them apart. They will be stacked together looking like two pancakes. You can leave them together and just have a double thick SCOBY or carefully separate them. If you take them apart, you can brew a new batch with both the mother and the baby. Reminder: each time you brew, the mother makes a baby. Which is awesome if you love kombucha like me, because you will have a continuous flow of kombucha. 

10. You will need to hold your SCOBY somewhere while you are brewing a new batch of tea. Make sure that the jar that your live SCOBY is in is glass and the lid is either plastic or glass. NO METAL. Carefully fish out your SCOBY with CLEAN hands, and place it into a clean jar and pour enough of the new brew to completely cover it. This is going to be your starter for your next batch. You can store this in the refrigerator. 

11. Your kombucha can be stored in the fridge for 6 weeks. The SCOBY can can be stored in the fridge indefinitely. 

12. ENJOY!!!

Important notes:

• WASH YOUR HANDS!
• Sometimes your SCOBY will become contaminated. If your SCOBY looks like it has mold, smells funny or tastes funny, throw it away! Contamination happens. So throw it away if you think it is contaminated. 
• Only use vinegar to clean you equipment. Do NOT use bleach. 
• Do NOT add juice before fermentation! If you want juice added to your kombucha, wait until after fermentation. 
• Start off drinking a little at a time. Home brewed kombucha is WAY stronger than store bought. It has lots of B vitmamins too!

PS guys, today is the last day to get your 10% off on Dark Chocolate & Tulips jewelry! Please take advantage of it! The code is a couple posts down :)