Healthy Homemade Kombucha
Making your own healthy homemade kombucha is so easy you may never want store-bought kombucha again!
Here are instructions on making your own kombucha, as long as you have a SCOBY to start you’re on your way to having gut-healthy homemade kombucha.
Our Sugar Hill Farmstead CSA members can add a SCOBY to their home delivery to make their own kombucha at home.
How to make your own Kombucha
Ingredients
Organic Black Tea
Organic Cane Sugar
SCOBY
Water
Equipment
Kettle, ½ gallon mason jar with lid, coffee filter or cheesecloth, container, rubber band
Method
When you receive your SCOBY please keep the lid slightly open to allow it to breathe. If you aren’t making kombucha right away, place the container in the refrigerator. Your SCOBY will live on, but it is best to use your new SCOBY within a couple of days.
Bring 5 cups of water to boil
Scoop ½ cup of organic cane sugar into ½ gallon glass jar
Place three tea bags of Organic Black Tea into glass jar. Secure them by screwing on the metal ring of the mason jar top.
Pour in hot water slowly to prevent cracking the jar, until the water covers the tops of the tea bags.
Swirl around the liquid a few times to help dissolve the sugar at the bottom
Leave on the counter until liquid reaches room temperature
Discard the tea bags
Fill the jar with cool or room temperature water just below the neck, at the last measurement bar on the mason jar.
Put your SCOBY into the liquid and gently stir a few times.
Cover the top of the jar with a coffee filter or cheesecloth. Secure it by screwing on the metal ring of the glass jar top.
Let jar sit on the counter for 5 days. Your brew time will depend largely on your taste preference. Shorter time produces a sweeter kombucha, a longer time will produce more vinegar tasting booch. Kombucha Brewing Tip: Warmer weather will speed up the process while cooler temperatures slows it down.
Once done, remove the SCOBY with a slotted spoon and put into a flat bottom glass bowl. Pour a little kombucha in to keep your SCOBY fed. Cover with a coffee filter or cheesecloth and use a rubber band to hold it over the glassware.
You now have kombucha! At this point you can add flavoring like ginger, lilikoi, etc. Seal your jar of homemade kombucha and put in the refrigerator. We recommend using a plastic mason jar top.
Enjoy!
A healthy SCOBY will ferment tea by floating at the top of the mason jar. If you have too much liquid it may not have enough space to grow. You will also watch as your SCOBY multiplies! After a few brews you may end up with multiple SCOBY babies. These can be stored in a bowl in the refrigerator from step 12, but make sure you pour a little of the sugar tea water from step 8 in with the SCOBY keiki to feed them. SCOBYs can be fed to animals once you have too many.