Kombucha Brewing : Recipe & Instructions

Kombucha Recipe Card:

Makes 1 litre kombucha. Double or triple the recipe for bigger batch.

Ingredients:

Filtered Water - 1 L (250 ml hot, 750 ml ambient/cold)

Green/Black/Oolong Tea Leaves – 4 to 6 gms

White Cane Sugar – 50 gms

Kombucha SCOBY – 1 cup strong starter with or without pellicle

Tools/Equipments:

Food-grade glass jar

String

Cotton/breathable cloth to cover the jar mouth

Tea filter

Spoon

Tea kettle/vessel to brew tea

Optional: pH strips/pH scale, brix meter

Flip-top/glass bottles for flavouring

 

Steps:

Step 1: Bring 250 ml water to boil in a vessel

Step 2: Turn off the flame and add 4 to 6 gms of tea leaves to the vessel. Cover it with a lid and steep for 10 minutes 

Step 3: Filter the tea out in a clean glass jar

Step 4: Add 50 gms of plain white sugar to it

Step 5: Let the tea concentrate cool down completely to ambient temperature 

Step 6:  Add rest of 750 ml cold water. Make sure that the tea solution is completely cold 

Step 7: Add 1 cup of starter with or without the SCOBY pellicle in the glass jar. Make sure that the starter liquid is very sour (almost vinegar like sourness)

Step 8: Cover the jar with a clean, breathable cloth cotton and secure it with a tight rubber band or a string.

Step 9:  Wait for 7 to 10 days for tea to turn into Kombucha. You can start tasting the brew from day 3 onwards with a clean and dry spoon. Disturbing the liquid is not a problem

Step 10: Once the kombucha has a balance of sweet and sour its ready, transfer in a glass bottle. Remember to save some starter and SCOBY pellicile for your next batch before you add any additional flavourings to your Kombucha Flavours of finished kombucha are subjective to individual palate

Step 11: Refrigerate the bottles. Enjoy as is or add flavours and do secondary fermentation in bottles for 24-48 hrs at room temperature or in refrigerator