Ingredients
- Scoby
- 6 Green Tea Bags
- 8 cups water
- 3/4 c sugar
Preparation
Step 1
In a large pot (we recommend stainless steel), bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Once boiling, continue to boil for five minutes to boil off impurities like chlorine.
Continue to boil while adding 12 grams of black tea. We recommend using 6 Lipton tea bags for your first starter batch. We know it works and produces consistent results. Black tea is best for starting with proven results. This batch will also have a long steep to create an ideal environment to get your first batch growing strong. Black tea is one of the few teas that don't become extremely bitter when you over-steep.
Continue to boil the water after you added the tea bags for an additional five minutes.
Remove from heat. Leave the tea bags in, cover (to minimize evaporation), and let sit for one hour.
After one hour, squeeze all the tea from the bags back onto the pot and add 3/4 cup sugar into the tea. Stir until fully dissolved. Many recipe's call for much more sugar than this. Too much sugar will actually inhibit growth and create a culture that is out of balance. You can experiment later, but right now, we are trying to get your SCOBY growing!
After your tea has cooled to room temperature, you want to activate your culture, then add your SCOBY.
Be sure to wash your hands with regular soap (not anti-bacterial, as residue may kill your SCOBY) and carefully open the heat sealed bag over a large bowl (preferably glass).
Inside, you may or may not find three smaller bags. We have recently changed our packaging procedure. If there are three bags, one contains your SCOBY. One contains your starter tea. One contains your Kombucha activator. Otherwise, all these contents are already mixed together in the same bag.
Empty the contents of all the bags onto your glass bowl.
Remove the SCOBY and set aside in another bowl.
To activate your starter and activator, you need to combine the remaining contents in your bowl (everything but the SCOBY) with your tea, add 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar (optional, but highly recommended) and oxygenate it.
Some methods to to activate and oxygenate:
Place contents in a blender and blend for 30-60 seconds
Combine contents in brewing container and blend with handheld blender
Combine contents in brewing container and beat with an egg beater for a few minutes.
Combine contents in brewing container and beat with a handheld whisk.
Once the tea is blended in your brewing container, place container in a warm, place away from indirect sunlight. Ideally, your location will have a consistent temperature between 68-78 degrees. The warmer the location, the faster your SCOBY will grow. If your environment is too warm or too cold, your SCOBY will become out of balance, will not grow properly, and may possible die!
Some people place their SCOBY above their refrigerator. Some people place it in their oven with the light on after replacing the bulb with a 7-15 watt bulb (DO NOT ferment the tea using a gas pilot light).
Before you add your SCOBY, take a small taste of the tea before you let it sit. It won't taste very good, but this will allow you to get a baseline for what your tea tastes like at the beginning. If something is wrong with your SCOBY and your tea isn't fermenting, how will you know if your tea tasted the same in a week if you haven't tasted it at the beginning?
Once you have found the location for your tea, gently place your SCOBY in the container. It may float, it may sink. It may sink then decide to float after a few days. It all has to do with amount of carbon dioxide in the SCOBY, the specific gravity of your tea, and some say it may just be your SCOBY's personality.
Son't be too concerned with where your SCOBY decides to hang out, because it doesn't really matter.
Now wait 7-10 days for the magic to happen!
WHILE YOU WAIT ... The first signs of growth should appear by day three or four in the form of fine filaments floating in your mixture. Your original SCOBY will not have increased in size, but will produce a larger "baby" SCOBY on the surface of the tea.
Your first culture will vary between 1/8" and 1/4" thickness There will be dark brown strands under the SCOBY which is the simple root structure that will fuel your following batches.
Taste the tea on the 7th day using a straw to sea if it is ready. If it is too sugary, then let it ferment longer. It usually takes 7-10 days, but it could take longer depending on your environment.
If your tea is ready, you are now ready to prepare your second batch.
Now, you want to brew more sweet tea for your first full batch of kombucha. Follow the recipe for tea you used the first time, except double it (makeuing one gallon) and DO NOT ADD VINEGAR!
16 cups/8 tea bags/ little less than 1 cup sugar