Recipes

Food for wholesome living

Kombucha…Kombuc-HUH?

Oct 28, 2017

My new favourite find this month has been KOMBUCHA! Kombuc-HUH? Kombucha, kombucha, kombucha, such a fun word! Okay I feel better now.

Fermented tea! Have you ever? Dating back some 2000 years, this probiotic rich drink has taken the health industry by storm!

With the fermentation process comes probiotics, enzymes, B vitamins, good acids necessary for proper biological functioning..

Sound icky but wowey, so tasty and the health benefits are astounding! Where has this been my whole life?

By drinking kombucha regularly you are:
-improving your immune system (we all need that)
– healing your gut with natural probiotics (the gut is the small brain and 80% of your immune system is based in your gut, happy gut happy bod!)
– It can help with type 2 diabetes
– Reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer forming agents
– Has high antioxidant levels
– Helps prevent diseases because it detoxes the bod and reducing inflammation, which we know is the root of most illnesses.
– Even known to improve mental health (flip I need a swimming pools worth)
– Protects the lungs
– Antibacterial
– Helps the liver.

When you google kombucha it can seem a little overwhelming with a trillion youtube videos on HOW TO..but here is the way I did it.

You will need:

A SCOBY (HUH?) a mother mushroom..a flat disk of squishyness made of of bacteria and yeast. It’s full name is Symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. SCOBY! and the starter tea it lives in (usually about 2/3 to 1 cup of sweet tea). You will usually buy it in this tea. At farmers markets the scoby are usually already in a glass jar with some starter tea!
4-6 black and/or green teabags (the process relies on tannins in the tea to make it work) or tea leaves of similar quantity.
1 cup of organic raw sugar (most people use brown sugar or cane sugar but I prefer organic coconut sugar.) The sugar is to feed SCOBY, the longer scoby stands and ferments the more sugar it consumes. no sugar equals dead scoby. I use organic coconut sugar so that if any sugar is left behind then at least my family is getting in healthy sugars.
a super clean glass jar (3-5litres)
A rubber band
a square of linen or cloth to cover the jar so it can breathe during fermentation but not allow insects in. (the lid stays off during brewing)

I purchased a Kombucha kit from Theonista on Faithful-to-nature (R350), purely because I live in the middle of nowhere and hardly ever get to a farmers market (which normally always stocks kombucha and scoby’s). This kit had everything I needed to get going and it was delivered to our closest post office, all I had to get was a large glass consol brewing vessel aka 5litre chutney or gherkin jar (get 2 so that you can swap and change between brewing).

Step 1: Clean your jar to the standards upheld in an ER! Wash your hands multiple times during the process because any germs can jeopordize your SCOBY!

Step 2: boil the kettle

Step 3: place 1 cup of sugar in the glass jar, along with your tea bags or your tea leaves in their strainer (a bag in this case).

Step 4: Pour boiling water in to just above sugar and teabag level, cover the jar with a cloth and allow 15-20minutes to steep. AFter 15-20minutes strain the teabags and stir the sugar to make sure it all dissolves.

Step 5: Let your tea (now known as sweet tea) cool down to room temperature. Any excess heat will kill your SCOBY. Poor scoby.

Step 6: add cool filtered water to your sweet tea, leaving enough room for the starter tea (what scoby is floating in) and SCOBY.

Step 7: Make sure your sweet tea is not hot, add starter tea (this is essential to just get the process going) and then slowly add Mr SCOBY. Slimy and gooey but so good at his job.

Step 8: put the linen over the top of the jar and place rubber band around the neck of the jar. Place jar out of direct sunlight in a warm spot. I have mine in the pantry on a shelf. I have a high window in there so no direct light.

WAIT 7-10 days. I wait 7, mainly because my family can’t wait longer and because I don’t like it too sour! You can taste test a bit on day 7 and see what you think.

When you’re ready to decant (day 7-10):

Step 1: Wash hands and remove linen and rubber band.

Step 2: Prepare glass bottles to pour kombucha into. I use GROLSH beer bottles. I had some empties lying around from years back, before you wonder hahaha. Any glass bottle with a secure, snap lid will do. CRUCIAL is a snap top lid (like grolsh or proper consol bottles) if you are going to make the Kombucha fizzy (second fermentation) because if the bottle isn’t made to handle CO2 build up it will explode!

Step 3: Pour 2/3 of cup into a clean jar or bowl and place SCOBY in there for a swim. You will need this starter tea for your next batch (called a continuous brew, one batch to the next straight away)

(and mine made a baby! YAY)

Step 4: Decant your remaining fluid into your bottles and VIOLA! KOmbucha! You can drink it just like this OR you can get snazzy and do a second fermentation (which makes it like fizzy cooldrink, just without the disgusting toxins).

If you are happy with the kombucha as is and you want to just brew the next batch then start back at step 1! Wash hands, prepare glass jar, brew sweet tea, cool it down, add starter tea from the batch you made, add SCOBY..cover and brew for 7-10days. EASY huh?

For 2nd fermentation DA bubbly part:

I like to do this

Step 1: Cut up pieces of fruit (we like pineapple and strawberries)

place them into your glass bottles before you decant the brew.

Step 2: Pour kombucha batch (after removing scoby and portion of starter tea) through a strainer and funnel into the glass jars over the fruit pieces but leave at least 3-4cms at the top of the bottle for the CO2 build up (it pops like champagne when you open it hahah)

Step 3: securely snap close the lid and store for another 1-3 days on the shelf out of direct sunlight. Refrigerate.