Growing Your Own Kombucha Mother

The Kombucha Mother

SCOBY

It is very easy to grow your own kombucha “mother”, or SCOBY, and simply requires a little patience. It is relatively easy these days to just go buy one, or get one from a friend, however if you are looking to be self-sustaining, or just looking to have some good fermenting fun, then try growing your own! There is a strange sense of satisfaction when you see that microbial colony appear as if from nowhere and slowly evolve into a ½ inch thick cellulose layer.

Ingredients:

• Organic raw cane sugar (this can obviously be substituted but I will discuss in my next post why some sugar sources are better than others)

• Filtered water (or spring water that is low in free chlorine)

• Organic Nikita Hojicha tea (or any caffeinated tea of your choosing)

• 2 bottles of raw kombucha (preferably one with a strong culture, some commercial raw kombuchas are just diluted vinegar)

Procedure

1. Sterilize a 0.5-1 litre glass jar by boiling or using a sanitizing solution (worth investing in a no-rinse solution which can be metabolized by the yeast - Star San or food grade ethanol)

2. Boil a small square of cheese/muslin cloth which will fit over the jar mouth, and allow to dry

3. Heat 1 cup of filtered water to 90 C

4. Add 2 teaspoons of Nikita Hojicha tea, or equivalent

5. Let infuse for 10 minutes, strain tea leaves

6. Add 25 g of cane sugar

7. Boil solution for 5-10 minutes

8. Remove from heat

9. Allow to cool to room temperature

10. Having let the bottles of store bought kombucha settle, decant the top ¾ of the bottles (have that as a nice drink) and try and make sure all the bottom sediment and floating cultures are left in the bottle (looks kind of like jellyfish)

11. Pour the contents of the two bottles into the cooled tea, and then pour the contents into the sanitized jar (from “1.”)

12. Add a few drops of white vinegar to ensure adequate pH drop

13. Cover the jar with the cheese/muslin cloth and secure with elastic

14. Store in dark place, with an ambient temperature of 20-25 C

15. Check in 1 week to see if film is forming on top (discard if moldy, add more vinegar next time). If no film yet forming, let sit for another week, or until the film starts to form – this is your “Daughter”

16. Once film layer is noticeable, it’s time to scale up and make more tea:

• sanitize a large jar (able to hold at least 1.5 litres)

• bring 1 litre filtered water to a boil

• add 60 g of cane sugar

• allow sugar to dissolve and boil for 5-10 minutes

• remove from heat

• steep with 10g of Nikita Hojicha tea for 10 minutes, strain leaves

• cool to room temperature

• add the “daughter” (“15.”)

• cover with muslin/cheese cloth and secure with elastic

• let sit for roughly 2 weeks

  Once the film on top becomes roughly ¼ - ½ inch thick you have yourself a mother. You are now ready to scale up and make some kombucha! Always keep the mother in a portion of the liquid, so as the keep the pH low – keeping out unwanted organisms – and preventing it from drying out.  The more you use your mother the more the flavours develop during fermentations. It’s fun to make mothers in different teas, and see what flavours you get in your final kombucha.