Ultimate *Updated* Guide to Homemade Kombucha (1st and 2nd Fermentation)

Welcome to brewing

kombucha

, this is your

ultimate

guide

to

homemade

kombucha

. If you've been watching the videos on my channel, you're probably thinking that you already have a

guide

to first

fermentation

and second

fermentation

, why are you filming another video about it? So I filmed that video a few years ago and although the recipe hasn't really changed, many of the materials I use remain the same. I made some adjustments to the process just to make it a little more efficient. I've been able to try a few other different products that I've now decided are my tried and true products compared to the first video I filmed a few years ago, so I thought I'd go ahead and film a full video. video covering f1 and f2 that includes all the steps of fermentation so viewers who are already familiar with my channel can see what my current

updated

kombucha brewing process is and if there are new people who haven't seen it. my videos on this channel before you can use this as the main video that will walk you through the entire process of making kombucha from start to finish, so let's go ahead and get started.

I'll just share some quick introductory details about what kombucha is for people who aren't familiar, but it's basically just fermented tea. All you need to make kombucha is fresh filtered tea water. I am partial to black tea, but you can use any type of tea as long as it is pure tea made from Herbal teas and herbal infusions from the Camellia Synonsis plant that are not made from real tea are not digested or processed properly by kombucha culture, so I recommend avoiding those types of non-tea herbal infusions for kombucha if you're curious. I have another video on that so definitely check it out if you're curious, but for the purposes of this video we're just going to use plain black tea, the next ingredient is sugar, kombucha is made with just white. cane sugar, brown sugar, honey, stevia, other types of alternative sweeteners are also not digested properly in kombucha culture, so I always recommend sticking to plain, white cane sugar.

The last ingredient to make kombucha is scoby, so scoby is actually an acronym that stands for the symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast and there's a lot of conversation in the home brewing community about what scoby actually is because there are a lot of people. They refer to this twisted looking thing as the scoby, some people actually refer to it as the film or the mushroom or the mother has many different names, but it is actually the symbiotic culture, so the bacteria and the Yeast don't actually live in this film on this physical mat, they actually live in the kombucha itself in the liquid, so the bacteria and the yeast not only lives in this scoby and technically the starter tea is also the scoby, but if If you're new to brewing kombucha, you'll want to get a good amount of starter tea and a scoby to get started brewing and you can do this two different ways.

I recommend going to a reputable online seller that sells scobies or movies and starter tea and just making sure you buy a good amount of starter tea. I have another video dedicated to how you can do it. acquire a good quality scoby and how you can make one from scratch from a kombucha bottle, so I'll put links to those videos in the description box below if you're curious about that, but another way to acquire a starter tea or The starter culture to make your kombucha comes from a pre-brewed batch of kombucha, so if you have a friend who is a kombucha homebrewer, ask them for some tiana scoby starter or if you've already pre-brewed a batch of kombucha, be sure to save about two. cups of that kombucha tea or that liquid and to save the film because that's basically what you're going to use as the starter tea for your next batch of kombucha, so in short, all you need to make kombucha is water, tea, sugar and a kombucha starter.

Today I'm going to make a gallon of kombucha, so to start I'm basically going to make a tea concentrate and the reason I make a tea concentrate is because the kombucha culture cannot survive in high temperatures above, say, 90 95 degrees. Fahrenheit, so I don't want to put it in gallons of very hot boiling tea, so what I'm going to do to start is basically make a tea concentrate that I'll then dilute with room temperature water to make it. a safe enough temperature for the scoby, so we're going to take my french press and you don't necessarily have to use a french press for this, if you don't have one you can use a strainer and a pot however you prefer. to make your tea, I'm very partial to black tea for making kombucha because I find that the really rich, honey-like floral qualities of a really good quality black tea pair really well with the flavors of kombucha, so I'm very partial to it.

When using black tea, I also find that it produces a very consistent drink. I never have problems with carbonation or flavor and it just produces healthy, consistent cultures of kombucha or scobies over time, so I have a couple different types of black tea here and in fact you can use any type of tea to make kombucha Whether you like green tea, white tea or oolong tea, yellow tea or poor tea, as long as it's made from the camellia sinensis plant again, you can use it for kombucha, but my favorites for brewing kombucha are black tea. and I have two different types here, one is English breakfast, an English breakfast is actually a blend of a few different pure black teas from a couple of different growing regions and each tea fountain or tea cellar has a slightly different blend in the one they like to make their English breakfast blend is a custom blend depending on the tea cellar.

I like to use English breakfast because it's a nice full black tea and I also like Assam black tea because this particular Asam tea has a really beautiful floral honey, almost like darjeeling. qualities and I find it to be a delicious tasting drink, so I have some hot water that's been boiling in an electric kettle, so I'm going to put about two tablespoons of English breakfast loose leaf tea in my French press, that It's one tablespoon two tablespoons and one tablespoon of Assam black tea at this stage, I'm actually going to add my sugar in the French press as well, so for every gallon of kombucha I recommend using between three quarters of a cup of sugar and one cup of sugar. , so I almost fill this dry measuring cup to the top and then I'm going to add water.

People also ask me why I like to add the sugar at this stage knowing that I am going to strain the tea leaves and then some of that sugar will stay along with the tea leaves. I like to add it at this stage because the water is hot at this point and makes the sugar dissolve much easier, but if you want to strain the tea leaves. Then mix the sugar at that point and then add it to the cold water. You can add the sugar at any step of the process. It really depends on your personal preference and I have found that even if there is some of that sugar left. behind the tea I discard, it doesn't really affect the brew, a lot of these measurements are just approximate so you don't need to be super precise with them as long as you're in the approximate range, so this tea will steep for about 10 to about 15 minutes, because I'm making loose leaf tea.

The tea leaves are larger than what you would actually find in a tea bag, which is basically just pulverized tea powder and therefore loose leaf tea. can handle longer brew times than if you were using tea bags, but if you have very high-quality tea bags or prefer to use tea bags, you can use six to nine individual tea bags per one-gallon batch of kombucha. , so I'm just going to let this sit for about 10 minutes and then we'll come back, so it's been about 10 minutes and our tea is ready, so I'm going to go ahead and strain it so this will be my brewing container.

What I'm going to do is go ahead and just add a little bit of water to the bottom to make sure the glass doesn't break when we add a very hot liquid to it, so if you add boiling water to the glass, the drastic change in temperature can make the glass from cracking, so to prevent that from happening, we're just going to cushion the hot tea with a little bit of water at the bottom and as you can see, I'm not being very precise when measuring the water either. for the soaking container or for the brewing container itself and that's mainly because I know that this gallon jar holds a gallon of liquid and I'm basically going to watch it to make sure that I'm adding enough water to fill the container up to the top of this tea concentrate also doesn't matter how much water you put in the tea.

I recommend at least two or three cups. I probably put in around more than four cups. I'm bad at estimating, but I gave a good one. amount of water in the French press just to make sure that the tea has enough room to bloom, rest and expand, but again the purpose of doing this was simply to make a very concentrated amount of tea that we were then going to dilute with. water to bring it to a temperature hospitable to the scoby so here we have our hot tea. I'm going to go ahead and add more water to the container to leave a little air space at the top of the gallon being brewed. container just because I want to make sure there's enough room to add my starter tea and my scoby or my film to the top of the container so now we're going to move on to the really most important ingredient in this whole mixture which is our starter tea lots of recipes online kombucha recommend using about one cup of starter tea for every gallon of kombucha.

In fact, I recommend using at least two cups of super strong starter tea or kombucha tea for every gallon of kombucha and the reason is because the starter tea is where a lot of beneficial bacteria and yeasts live, the faster those bacteria and yeasts can be inoculated. and lower the ph of your sweet tea, the less likely it is to grow mold and basically the quicker it will start to do so. fermentation process, so instead of being stingy with my initial tea, I prefer to add double the amount. Use it as an extra precaution to make sure my kombucha starts off on the right foot and again I'll link it in the description box below. where you can purchase good quality starter tea and a movie or if you're already brewing kombucha, all you have to do is make sure you reserve at least two cups of kombucha tea from a previously brewed batch of kombucha, so now let's add our initial culture of kombucha in our brewing container and before we do that, I'm just going to take a reading of the temperature of the liquid because you want to make sure that the liquid is below 90 degrees but above 65 degrees to make sure it's the ideal temperature for the scoby um so we're at about 95 degrees so actually I'm just going to add a little bit more room temperature water to make it a little bit cooler stir it up and another reading we're at 87.

Awesome and now We're ready to add our scoby or our film, we can also call this the mother, the mushroom, the kombucha starter. It goes by a lot of different names, but this gnarly looking thing goes in our brewing container along with two cups of really strong starter tea. Now I have this from a hotel scoby of mine because I've been brewing for a long time. I like to keep a scoby hotel basically as a receptacle to store my excess movies and also to basically serve as a super-charged super-sour kombucha factory, so I like that. Using really acidic starting tea to brew my kombucha because in my opinion that makes the kombucha the most delicious tasting and using this method I have never found mold in my batches so it's another really good way to make sure that your kombucha is resistant.

It is by using starting tea with a very low pH and high acid content. If you are curious about building a scoby hotel, definitely check out my video on scoby hotels. I'll also link it below, but for now we're just going to go ahead and add the starter tea into our batch, watch it all the way to the top and actually, I'm just going to give it a quick stir to make sure the starter tea is well incorporated into the entire brew. and that's it, from here all you have to do is cover with a clean cloth, secure it with a rubber band, you just want to store it somewhere out of direct sunlight and have a good amount of airflow if you have Curious about my recommendations for where to definitely place your kombucha brewing containers.

Check out my video on locations where I go into more detail on that, but at this point it's ready to hang out for about a week, it doesn't really matter if the movie sinks or floats over the course of that time. You may see it just sitting on top of the container or you may just see it hanging in the middle ordown, that doesn't really matter, it's not an indicator of anything good or bad, usually you will find that a new film or a new scoby will try to form on the surface of the liquid. I have another video on what to expect during the first fermentation process if you're curious about the details and what to expect while you wait for this batch. of kombucha to finish fermenting, but a couple of common questions I get from brewers is that I see some white spots on the surface of my container.

It's been about three days and I can't tell if it's mold or if it's the new one. Scoby forming, in that case it's most likely a scoby that's trying to form and get a little thicker, so if you're worried it's mold, I recommend giving it a few more days and waiting to see if it gets thicker. Cohesive scoby or if it turns into something that is unmistakably mold, if it is mold, it looks like the classic circular mold found on bread or cheese, so it should be fairly easily identifiable. Kombucha mold doesn't look that different from other molds found on other fruits or vegetables. food and then another question I get from homebrewers is if the formation of a new scoby really indicates when their kombucha is done fermenting and the answer in short is that there is no scoby growth or the formation of scoby is a good indicator that fermentation is happening, but it can't really tell you when your kombucha is done fermenting and the reason I can't tell you that is because different variables and different factors actually affect the growth of a new scoby, so I actually find that In the winter, when the temperature is colder, my beers don't always produce a new scoby with each batch, sometimes a thin film, a super thin opaque film, forms over the top of my brew container and sometimes , nothing happens to it, but in reality it will continue to ferment and I know it.

It's fermenting because as I taste it it continues to acidify so it becomes a little more sour, a little bit of that sweetness will basically continue to disappear as time goes on and that's how I know fermentation is happening. You can also test the ph. of the preparation over time using different ph testers or test strips. I have another video dedicated to checking the ph of kombucha, so if you're curious you can watch that video, but in my daily brewing I basically never use my ph meters because I've gotten into a rhythm, I know how my particular kombucha culture behaves, and I know what to pay attention to when it comes to successful fermentation and that's basically when it starts to taste more sour, the main way to tell.

When your kombucha finishes fermenting and is done with the first fermentation is basically when it tastes done, so I recommend that you start tasting it around five days in if you are curious to know if it is very hot where you live, the fermentation will speed up. warmer temperatures, so if you live in a warmer climate you may want to start testing after the third or fourth day, but where I am is a fairly moderate climate, so the average room temperature in my house is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit and I find that my beers tend to take between a week or two to reach the perfect sweet tart point that I like.

There is also a lot of conversation within the kombucha homebrewing community about film and whether or not it is really necessary to include film when you are brewing a new batch of kombucha, especially since most of the beneficial bacteria in yeast, as I mentioned, They live within the initial tea. So do you really need to use a film when you're brewing a new batch of kombucha or is it just a fermentation byproduct that doesn't really do anything and you can actually just throw it away, so I've done a lot of testing in parallel to basically prove this theory and it What I found is that in batches where I use both cups of strong initial tea plus a film or a physical scoby mat, those batches tend to lower the ph faster and ferment a little faster than batches where I only use two cups of tea. strong initial, so in both cases fermentation occurs in both cases you end up with a batch of successfully fermented kombucha, but because in my side-by-side testing I found that batches that have initial tea and a film tend to ferment faster , I found that it's best to include it anyway to give my kombucha the best possible chance to be a successful drink, so if you're adamantly against using film or find it's simply an unnecessary part of your brewing process , then don't worry, you definitely don't need to use the film like me.

I mentioned that it's really just having that really strong acidic starter tea base that will start the fermentation, so that's really the most important part, so we're basically going to let this sit for about a week or so until it's done. to that perfect level of sweet tart that I like and then we're ready to move on to the second phase of fermentation so we'll check back on this in about a week and come back so it's been about a week since I first started this first ferment and as you can see, its color has definitely lightened a little bit and on the top of the container there is a very thin film that has started to form.

I don't know if you can see it, but as soon as I take the cover off and I'll show it to you. It's very translucent right now because it's a little colder right now in my house and so colder temperatures usually result in thinner scoby growth or no scoby growth at all, that's perfectly fine , completely. normal and you can see the original film has sunk to the bottom of the brewing container and that's totally fine too but the main thing I'm testing as far as cooking is just the flavor so if you only have a straw you want to use to take a look at your blue container like that and give it a flavor, it should have a little bit of acidity, it shouldn't be sour like vinegar, but it should be less sweet than the brew you started with, so just a little bit. a little bit of acidity there is still some nice sweetness the black tea the black tea flavors are definitely still coming through i think this is ready to bottle so to start with clean hands just lift the scoby or film out of the brew and this has only been fermenting for about a week so the scoby growth is very thin as you can see super translucent and the longer you let it ferment say if you want to ferment this for two weeks if you really want it to be a bit. more sour, you can let this continue to ferment as long as you want and the drink will continue to get more sour and that's totally fine, just grab the scoby right there and just to make sure that your next batch of kombucha has enough for the initial tea , you just want to stir the brew to basically lift up any sediment and yeast that has settled at the bottom of the brewing container just to make sure that the brew is completely homogeneous in there and I'm just going to pour in maybe 16 ounces, you basically want to take a little of the kombucha liquid and set it aside because this will be the starter tea that you will use to make a new batch of kombucha in the future so you can go ahead and start making a new batch of kombucha. with this right away or if you have a hotel scoby, I happen to have some hotels scoby where I keep my stash of extra movies and extra starter tea, you can go ahead and save this in your hotel scoby as well, so I'm just going to leave this to a side for now, this is actually one of my Hotel Scoby's from there, so I'll put it in my Hotel Scoby later, but the rest of this drink is what we're going to go ahead and bottle and flavor, so this actually It is drinkable as is, if you are not interested in carbonating your kombucha or if you are not interested in flavoring it with any fruit flavoring, then you do not need to go through the next process that I am about to show you.

It's completely optional, however, if you want carbonation and you want to flavor it with fruits and herbs, keep watching because I'm going to show you exactly how to do it, the rest of the kombucha tea that's been fermented here, I'm just going to stir it again to make sure that It is well incorporated and it is totally normal to see brown stringy pieces of yeast floating around the liquid which is just yeast and they are friendly, they are healthy, don't worry you can just pass it through a strainer to make sure you remove the stringy pieces of yeast from the infusion so that at this point this infusion is ready to flavor and bottle.

I prefer to flavor with fresh fruit, but if you're curious how I made my flavorings, I have a completely different one. video dedicated to how I make my fruit flavorings, how I make my herb flavorings, so definitely check out those videos. I'll link them in the description box below, so what I have here is about a pound of strawberries that I pureed with a nut of ginger and a couple tablespoons of white sugar. I'm never too precise when it comes to measuring fruit because I usually just go to the supermarket and grab whatever looks appealing to me at the time, so I'm not really too precise with measurements, but if you want an approximation of how much I'm using, this It's about a pound of strawberries, a nut of ginger, maybe three thumbs of ginger, and then a couple tablespoons of sugar.

I'm going to go ahead and add this. in the jar to mix it and I'm going to start with half or a little more than half just to see if the flavor is at the right level that I like because you can always add more but you can't take it away. once it's in it's good to do it in stages just grab a straw to taste it definitely use a little bit more so I'm going to go ahead and add the rest of this and depending on the different flavors you use you might find that you want add more or add less if this is the part of kombucha making that is really subjective, it's just based on individual flavor preferences, but what I find to make a successful kombucha is usually fresh fruit results in more consistent carbonation .

I'm going to do another quick taste test. Perfect, perfect, definitely, the ginger peeking through the strawberries. It has a really fresh and sweet flavor. What I'm looking for when it comes to testing at this stage of the game is something that's too sweet for my taste and the reason I'm aiming. something that is too sweet is because over the course of the second fermentation process, as the kombucha continues to ferment at room temperature in the bottle, it will continue to acidify and continue to become less sweet over the course of that time, so at this point I want make it too sweet for my taste so that at the end of the second fermentation process it has the perfect level of sweet acidity, so that's why I like to aim for something a little bit sweeter. sweeter, it is actually very important to make sure you stir continuously because this is a natural product in which the fruit pulp or strawberry puree will tend to settle to the bottom of whatever container it is in, so just during this phase while I'm distributing it in all these bottles.

I want to make sure to continually stir to make the mixture as smooth as possible, but at this point I'm going to add them to my bottles and if you're curious where I got them. bottles I have an entire video dedicated to choosing the right bottles and lids for making kombucha. I actually have a couple of videos on that, so I'll link them in the description box below if you're curious about how to choose quality bottles to be sure. that no explosion happens in the bottle, I know it's a very common fear especially for new home brewers, it's what happens if the bottle gets too pressurized and explodes, should I burp my bottles every day to basically prevent them from does that explosion happen?

On both accounts, the answer is that burping is not necessary and I wouldn't be too worried about bottle explosions as long as you use quality pressure-rated bottles, and again, I go into a lot of detail about how to find those bottles. my website and in the videos that I link below, I'm going to pause very quickly just to give it another stir halfway through, so there we have all our beautiful bottles full of kombucha, now we're going to cap these bottles. and tapas are really important. I mentioned this in some of my other videos, but you really want to make sure you use tight lids because if you don't get a tight seal with these bottles, they won't carbon. right basically what you want to do is make sure you trap the carbonation in the liquid so it doesn't leak out of the bottle and that's what's going to make sure your kombucha is as carbonated as possible just cap them all. and then lastly to make sure they are as airtight as possible, I like to use just a basic rubber jar opener to make sure they are very tight, so at this point these bottlesThey will have to continue fermenting. at room temperature for at least a few more days, my bottles, depending on how hot they are, usually take between three and seven days to carbonate to the level of carbonation I like, there are many different factors that contribute to how rapid fermentation occurs, As I mentioned earlier in the video, warmer temperatures speed up fermentation and colder temperatures generally slow it down, so in winter it may take about a week for your kombucha to carbonate to the level of fizz it needs. like in the summer you may find that it happens very quickly, it really just depends on the temperature and your particular kombucha cultures, basically the unique yeast and bacteria that live in your particular kombucha culture affect the rate of fermentation that many homebrewers are torn.

On the topic of burping kombucha bottles, there is a group of kombucha brewers who think you should burp your kombucha bottles regularly or do it daily to prevent explosions from occurring. I have another video dedicated to why I am against burping and why. I don't burp my kombucha bottles, but the reason I don't burp my kombucha bottles is because I want there to be carbonation in the liquid and so the more I open the bottle during the fermentation process, the more I'm releasing that. carbonation in the air so it's basically like taking two steps forward and one step back every time I open a cap and try to check the carbonation now if you're new to brewing definitely check and burp your bottles and check to see if fermentation is happening, check to see if they get more fizzy as the days go on, but now that I'm very familiar with how my beers ferment, I never burp my bottles, another great thing about these particular caps and I talk from This in my other video about these bottle caps is because they are not like the traditional type of flip top bottles that most brewers use to brew kombucha.

They have a very flat top that over the course of the fermentation process will actually form a dome and very slightly. it bubbles up a little bit so the domed top is actually a great indicator that fermentation has occurred, that the bottles are pressurized and the carbonation is building up in the liquid, so that's another reason why it really I don't find the need to burp my bottles. and then lastly, another reason I don't burp my bottles is because warmer temperatures actually exaggerate the carbonation a lot, so if you take two identical bottles of kombucha, same flavor, same batch, and chill one of them, but you leave one at room temperature, the other at room temperature when it is opened it basically bubbles and seems much more carbonated than the same bottle that is cooled to a colder temperature and that is because the colder temperatures basically help trap carbon dioxide in the liquid better than warmer temperatures, another reason I don't like to burp my bottles is because in the course of those burps, if you're burping at room temperature, you could basically open a bottle and see that the carbonation is quite exaggerated, it could even bubble and make a mess out of the bottle. bottle, it could spill and that could give you the indication that, oh my goodness, these bottles are too carbonated.

I need to move them to the refrigerator immediately only to find that once they are cold, they don't actually make as many bubbles and the reason for this again is that warmer temperatures exaggerate the carbonation, so the best way to test if your bottle is at the right level of carbonation is basically if you have these bottle caps to check if it's domed enough and that's a good indicator. After enough carbonation has built up in the bottle or after a few days of letting them ferment at room temperature, simply take one of the bottles and chill it in the refrigerator or, if you want to do it really quickly, just stick it in the freezer for about 15 to 20 minutes, just make sure you set a timer so you don't forget the bottle in the freezer, but once it's completely cold at that point, open the lid and see if it's at your desired level of fizz that you like some people like. your kombucha is really carbonated and effervescent and others like just a little bit of carbonation, so no matter where you fall on that spectrum, you can really adjust the schedule based on your flavor preferences and people also ask if you need to ferment them at room temperature. , it needs to go through a second fermentation process and the answer is no, if you like its flavor as is and are not interested in carbonating it then you can go ahead. and move them straight to the refrigerator to cool, but if you want to increase that carbonation, definitely leave them at room temperature for a few days before chilling, but I guess we're back to what I was saying before if you try one of the bottles. and it's at that perfect level of carbonation, then you know you can take the rest of the bottles and take them to the refrigerator, but if you find that it's not carbonated enough or you want a little more carbonation, then you can take that bottle out of the refrigerator and then I let the rest of the bottles continue to ferment and people also ask me what happens if I put all my bottles in the refrigerator and then try one of them and it turns out that it's actually not like that.

As fizzy as I want, can I take them all out and let them continue fermenting at room temperature? Yes, you absolutely can, these are live products, so when you put your kombucha in the refrigerator, it slows down the fermentation tremendously, but it doesn't kill the yeast or the bacteria, it doesn't stop the fermentation completely, it just makes it very slow, so yes You discover that you've put your kombucha in the refrigerator but you actually want a little more carbonation, you can have the whole thing. Take those bottles out and continue fermenting them at room temperature for a couple more days until they reach your desired level of carbonation.

If you're worried about the bottles exploding or if you're trying different bottles and aren't quite sure if you're definitely pressure rated, check out my video on what to do if you're afraid the bottles are exploding for some tips on how to make sure you're fermenting them safely, so we'll go ahead and let them ferment at room temperature for a few days and then check again when they're done to test, so it's been some time since we bottled these beers since we last reviewed them, they've been fermented at room temperature for about five or actually six days I chilled one of these bottles at four days and once was completely cold I checked it to see if it was at the level of carbonation I preferred and found that it was still a little undercarbonated so I let the rest of the bottles continue fermenting for a couple more days so they are at room temperature for a total of about six days and six days is normal for this time of year, for me it's spring in Los Angeles so it's not very hot. yet, but it's not really cold, so my beers generally take between three days in the warmer summer months to carbonate and about a week to carbonate during the colder months, so we're going to go ahead and just open one of these bottles and give you a sample and as you can see this was our batch of strawberry and ginger and a lot of sediment and the pulp of the fruit has settled in the brew, sometimes they accumulate on the top of the liquid, sometimes They sink to the bottom, they don't.

It doesn't really matter, I haven't noticed any difference in the quality of the kombucha either way, but since it's a bit more of a pulpy drink I'm going to go ahead and strain it, it's really up to your preferences whether you want it or not. strain it or not, but since this is a little thick, I'm going to strain it and my favorite way to open a bottle of kombucha is to just have these very simple rubber tongs. I buy it on Amazon. I can put a link to it down in the description box below, but for these caps in particular and I really love these caps because you can take a look at them and see if the plastic has curled up, that's another good way to see if carbonation has built up in the bottle.

That's why I prefer these bottles and lids to the flip top grocery store style bottles, but let's go ahead and open this up, just open it up, you can see the carbonation builds up, oh my gosh, you want to do less. It was a mess that I used a funnel but that is a beautifully bubbly fizzy infusion, just strain the pulp, you can see the color is just beautiful, beautiful strawberry and ginger infusion, perfect level of carbonation again if you want it to be more soda or less. With carbonation you can always adjust how long you keep the batch at room temperature before refrigerating it, and I always like to refrigerate my kombucha brews before opening any of them because I expect cold liquids to retain carbonation much better than warm or room temperature liquids. this was really helpful if you want to make another batch of kombucha just go ahead and use the reserved two cups of starter tea and the scoby of your unflavored kombucha to basically start the process over and brew another batch of kombucha and one last tip that I'll leave you while you troubleshoot and get to know your kombucha preferences and your particular scoby.

One thing that really helped me learn at a fast pace when I was first learning how to brew kombucha is taking a lot of notes and taking very detailed notes. notes on my brewing process, what worked, what didn't work and that really helped me hone my process and get to know my particular culture very well at a fast pace, so if you're interested in a log book and kind of journal that you can use it to not only find my recipes, find charts, guides and troubleshooting tips, but also keep track of all your kombucha brewing processes.

Definitely check out my book, The Kombucha Craftsmen's Record Book, which is available for sale on Amazon and at Barnes Noble i. I'll link to it in the description box below, but I modeled that journal and guide based on the trackers and charts I was using that I made for myself when I was first learning to brew and found that it really helped me. solidify the knowledge and understand the brewing process in a very science-based way, so definitely take a look if you're new to brewing or if you're an experienced homebrewer looking to up your game, there's something in that record. book for everyone if you are curious about other topics related to kombucha brewing.

I hope you visit my website youbrewkombucha.com. I hope you found this video useful.