My photo guide to brewing kombucha

Your own super tasty and fizzy brew in less than an hour a week

I love a kombucha that is not too sour and has great fine fizzy bubbles. I’ve been getting this consistently now for a couple years. Here’s how I do it.

I use these one gallon glass jars that they sell at Rainbow Grocery and use for their bulk spices. Super durable and inexpensive.

I use a heaping tablespoon of whole leaf black tea. I bought some organic whole leaf at Rainbow years ago and still use that. Green tea works too. I’ve heard you can get a more active and bubbly brew with green tea but I haven’t experimented with it and mine is plenty bubbly.

Boiling water and a cup of white sugar. Any sugar is fine. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

Fill it with enough room for the culture you saved from the last batch or for the culture you are using to start your brew.

When it’s cool — usually the next day — I strain the tea.

Then add the saved culture. I try to float the scoby on the top as it will help to trap CO2 and make a bubblier brew but it doesn’t really matter much and often sinks in the jar.

I cover it with a dish cloth so it can breath and stash it on the counter. The warmer it is — because of weather or where you put it — the faster it will ferment.

For me right now, it’s ready in a week. It’s often a bit slower when I’m first getting regular batches started and definitely in the winter. It works really well to taste it every day or two — just scoop a bit off the top. You’ll notice that you can taste the tea and then suddenly you can’t. That’s when I like to bottle it. I like a mild kombucha but you can leave it longer if you want it stronger.

I put the scoby in another jar, mix the kombucha to evenly distribute the yeast that settles to the bottom, and save off some to start the next batch. If the brew is happy and active it will usually fizz and foam when I stir it the first time.

I really like ginger in my brew. I have ice cubes of ginger juice saved in the freezer for this. I juice a ton of ginger a couple times a year and freeze it in ice cube trays. I add one ice cube for the jar.

I also add some more sugar as simple syrup. 1/8-1/4 cup depending on how sour the kombucha tastes. This is to “charge” the brew - get the yeast active again so it will carbonate in sealed bottles and get nice and fizzy. When the ginger is melted I stir it with the simple syrup to combine it evenly.

Lately I’ve also been adding a concentrated hibiscus tea I made a while ago and saved in the fridge. You can barely taste it but it makes it this awesome color. I like it for now but will probably go back to the normal ginger soon.

I like these little jars because they’re single servings. I just use old kombucha jars that we’ve bought at different times.

I fill them close to the top. This will help with the carbonation too.

Put the caps on then rinse and dry the bottles.

And then I stash those on the counter too. I leave them there for 3–4 days then put them in the fridge. They’re good in the fridge for weeks. I’ve never waited long enough for one to go bad in any way. If you try one from the fridge and it is too sweet and not yet fizzy enough, just leave it on the counter for another couple days.

Once you’ve bottled it, you’re back to making the tea.

My routine is usually on Saturday or Sunday I bottle the brew and make a new batch of tea. The next day I add the culture to the cooled tea. A couple days later I put the bottles in the fridge and start to drink em up. It’s less than an hour total per week and produces my favorite kombucha out there.

If you’re going to be out of town, you can put the jar in the fridge to slow down the fermentation while you are gone— essentially pushing pause on the whole process so you can pick up where you left off when you get home.

Happy to answer questions or take suggestions in the responses. Let me know how it goes!