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gamingCaffeinator posted:One of my boyfriend's friends gave me a four-pack of kombucha beer (Elderwand by Unity Vibration) for Christmas and it's piqued my interest. Is there anything I should know to avoid if trying the normal stuff for the first time? I don't intend to do any homemade until I know if I like the non-beer type. Elderwand is loving magic though. Normal plain kombucha is like a slightly sweet light vinegar with a mild carbonation. Very little similarity between the kombucha beer you have had and plain normal kombuchas. Elderwand is 8%ABV for example, and they use lacto and brett and/or open ferment it seems, also barrel age their beers. From the site: quote:Our Kombucha Beer is a wonderful evolution of our traditional Kombucha. “Triple Goddess” is a marriage of our 30-day brewed Kombucha, organic dried hops and either organic raw ginger root, organic fresh raspberries, organic peaches, or three types of hops, juniper and grapefruit rind. All aged and open-air-fermented in oak barrels and then bottle conditioned. The combination creates exquisite flavors that have depth and complexity as well as healthy nutrients. Like our organic Kombucha, it is raw, made with organic ingredients, gluten free, vegan and bottle conditioned and lends itself to healthy and beneficial bacteria. Unity Vibration was the first to release an all-kombucha based Kombucha Beer nationally. ALL OF OUR KOMBUCHA BEERS ARE GLUTEN-FREE! Jeffrey Dahmer fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 15:18
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:07 |
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Got my first batch done this weekend, total 1.4L yield. Separated into 3 bottles for secondary ferment and flavored with just pineapple, pineapple-cayenne, and pineapple-mint. Cracked the pineapple-mint tonight - it's fantastic and goes amazingly well with gin. I bought more/bigger jars so I'm looking at ~5.5L next week, 3 total jars/scobys doin work. Definitely going to run out of this current batch way too quickly.
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Feb 12, 2018 07:01
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That's awesome! Let us know how the flavors work out. I make about 2 gallons a week and I'm usually running out a couple days early 😫
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Feb 12, 2018 20:27
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Does anyone brew in something like this? (A jar with a tap.) Seems like it would make bottling easier, but maybe there are drawbacks I'm not thinking about.
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Feb 12, 2018 22:21
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Al2001 posted:Does anyone brew in something like this? (A jar with a tap.) Seems like it would make bottling easier, but maybe there are drawbacks I'm not thinking about. I don’t personally use one so I can’t speak from experience, but lots of people use a spigot. People often call it a “continuous brew system” or “CB.” Leaving the pellicle and starter in the jar when you bottle doesn’t seem like such a huge difference to me, but it does let you harvest the booch without handling the pellicle, and I guess you can pour it straight from the jar if you don’t mind skipping carbonation. Just make sure the spigot is plastic or stainless steel, other metals can leech and harm the scoby. Also, it might get clogged at some point.
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Feb 14, 2018 18:06
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I blended the juice of about 6 passion fruit ("Maracuya" here in Baja), 6 small guavas, and 3 pears into a puree and strained it, splitting between two 64oz. glass growlers. The flavor came out very nice - it's tangy from the somewhat sour passionfruit, but the guava and pear smoothes it out well. The other flavor I did this week was strawberry and ginger. For that one I blended about 10 strawberries with 2" of ginger root. That one came out pretty well too  I made a ginger beer this week that came out pretty well - I may mix that with some booch for the next round.
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Feb 22, 2018 07:02
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I've had a couple of SCOBYs in the fridge since August, just took em out to start making booch again. They look totally fine, does anyone know if they're likely to "work" straight away or do I need to do something to wake them back up? I've put them into a fresh batch of sweet green tea with a little vinegar but just concerned that nothing is gonna happen.
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Feb 27, 2018 14:22
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I saw it mentioned earlier in thread about blending teas. I do this quite frequently and here's what I can tell you/suggest from my own experiments: The teas that you can use are: Black, Oolong, Green, White Black is your "basic" Kombucha recipe according to most people, if you're wanting to do blending Kombucha make sure to start with at least 50% black tea, there are other types of SCOBY with different micro-organisms for Green/White teas (Jun tea), and while you can use a Kombucha SCOBY in 100% green or white tea, it's probably better to just get a Jun starter for those kinds of tea. Oolong - much like Black tea- this works really well in a 50/50 blend with black, it adds a lighter, sweeter note to the booch. Green - I normally do a 75/25 blend of black/green when doing a green tea blend, and I usually only do this if one of my friends requests it. Even at a 25% blend you can taste the difference that green tea brings to the booch. It definitely lessens the vinegar like flavor of straight black tea kombucha - however, in my personal experience, it also seems to lengthen the fermentation time by about a week. I've been told that green tea blends will weaken your SCOBY over time, and that for every 2-3 batches of 75/25 black/green tea blends you should give that SCOBY a 100% Black tea blend. I honestly didn't like the grassy notes enough to keep up with this constantly for myself so I can not confirm the weakening ability of green tea. White - what green tea does to Kombucha, white tea also does but even moreso. However, there's no grassy notes with the white tea. I found myself liking the 75/25 blend and even the 50/50, so I got a Jun starter and just started making white tea Jun. Teas I do not recommend: Red tea, Lapsang Souchong Red tea - I tried a 50/50 Red tea (Roobios)/Black tea blend, I'm not sure if my SCOBY was just weak or what, but this killed the SCOBY. Lapsang Souchong - I knew that the process of smoking tea could add impurities to the tea, but tried it anyway. Once again, this killed the SCOBY that was using for this batch.
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Mar 1, 2018 17:13
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Has anyone tried using yerba mate? I've mixed some with green and black (1/3 of each) and it seems to work, but now I curious about the longevity of the scoby going forward. Does it throw the balance off at all?
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Apr 25, 2018 15:54
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I've only used black and green teas - let us know how it works!
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Apr 27, 2018 01:01
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Astonishing Wang posted:I've only used black and green teas - let us know how it works! Taste-wise it is good! Just trying the first of the batch after bottle conditioning for a few days, and it is great, slightly more earthy but otherwise similar to black/green blends I usually use. Particularly successful where blood orange and ginger were added. I guess it is TBD on whether it will hurt the culture over time, but I'm several days into the next fermentation with that same scoby and so far so good. I think I read somewhere that you'll see any damage within 10 generations. Oh also, noticeably higher caffeine content with the 1/3 yerba mate, I can't drink it after about 3
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Apr 27, 2018 16:46
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I just came back from 2 months of travelling and was happy to find my SCOBY alive and well. I left it out in the same slightly cool dark place where I usually brew my batches. The liquid is very vinegary. I saved the biggest chunk of mother and split it between two new gallon batches of black tea, and tossed away the rest of them. What do you guys do with the vinegar? 
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May 15, 2018 18:30
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:07 |
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Vinaigrettes! Pickles!
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May 16, 2018 14:04
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