(Info, Heating Mat, Brewing Containers)
Time to talk about kombucha. First off, you can think of kefir as the king of probiotics but what kombucha has which kefir doesn't is glucuronic acid. Actually, there's debate about this. Some research says that kombucha does NOT contain glucuronic acid but rather gluconic acid. Glucuronic acid is normally produced by the liver. It is very detoxifying. It binds with toxins and the resulting product is excreted by the kidneys. Even if there isn't any glucuronic acid, it is believed that the gluconic acid will act similarly. So, because of the detoxifying action be careful with prescription drugs as Kombucha may eliminate the drugs.
A side note. Because kombucha is sour/acidic (as kefir can also be,) you should rinse your mouth vigorously with water after drinking it. Don't brush your teeth right away as this can push the acid further into your teeth enamel.
First, the obligatory informational links:
Kefir is brewed with the grains that you're familiar with. Kombucha is brewed with a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.) You can see what they looks like here:
The SCOBY needs air but you want to protect it from airborne contaminants and insects like fruit flies, vinegar eels (they're harmless to humans but they'll eat the SCOBY,) etc. In those pictures you'll notice I'm using 3" basket type coffee filter paper (like you'd use with Mr. Coffee machines) over the jar secured by a rubber band. Some people use paper towels but I figured the coffee filter will have less lint.
Kombucha is not as hearty as kefir grains. You'll have to be more careful of contamination. Keep away from cigarette smoke and plants as they can carry mold spores. Also, keep the kombucha separate from kefir as (even though they're beneficial) the kefir bacteria can be "adopted" by the kombucha SCOBY. Also, keep away from other raw, unrefined vinegars which contains the "mother of vinegar."
You will need vinegar in the preparation of kombucha. The only vinegar that should be used is plain white distilled vinegar. Be aware that some distilled vinegar is produced as a by-product of petroleum refining vs. from vegetable sources. Listen to your conscience when choosing a brand. You'll be using the vinegar to clean your utensils and to spray on your hand when you handle the SCOBY. Keep a spray bottle of the distilled vinegar for this task. I also use this spray bottle of vinegar to clean kitchen counter-tops, etc. It's also great to avoid stinky kitchen sponge syndrome. Avoid using anti-bacterial soap, just rinse the outside of the jars, utensils, etc. with tap water to clean and spray the inside of the jars, utensils, hands, etc. with the vinegar to disinfect. I even spray the coffee filter paper with vinegar to re-use it each cycle (getting the most use out of it.) You can cover the jars with the paper still wet. The vinegar will evaporate off.
You can get the recipe and procedures from the above links but the basic steps are:
Boil a quart of water with 1.5 cups of white sugar (sucrose which is broken down into glucose and fructose) in a glass or stainless steel pot. Boiling the sugar will kill any mold spores that might be present. Make sure you use spring water as tap water may have chloramines (chlorine+ammonia [as Portland's does]) which does not evaporate out as it does in plain chlorinated water. Note that chloramines are not removed by tap water filters.
Add 3 green tea bags and 2 black (also known as pekoe or orange pekoe) tea bags. Make sure you use real tea and not anything flavored, like Earl Gray or herbal teas. Steep for 10 to 15 minutes (a kitchen timer is great for this. :) The sugar feeds the SCOBY and the tea (and spring water) provides minerals and nitrogen for the SCOBY to produce the cellulose.
[I'm hypersensitive to caffeine so I've learned that you can pre-steep the bags in a pint of spring water for 5 minute, throwing this water/tea away. Squeeze the bags out gently with a spoon. This will remove 70% to 80% of the caffeine. Move the 5 tea bags to the sugar water for the 10 to 15 minute steep.]
Make sure the boiled sugar solution is completely cooled down to room temperature. A lot of people get impatient with this step. Room temperature water will feel cold. If the water is warm, it's at least body temp (98.6 degrees) and the bacteria portion of the SCOBY will start to die at 95 degrees. I usually prepare the sugar tea before bed and let it cool 'til morning. Make sure you have a lid over the sugar tea or you may find a bunch of ants invading your tea.
Pour the cooled sugar solution into a glass gallon jar (which was disinfected with the vinegar spray.) Add 1.5 cups of kombucha tea from a previous batch. The acidity will help keep any bad germs at bay. Add more cool spring water to the jar to bring the level in the jar up the part before it tapers (you don't want to crowd the SCOBY... and make sure you account for the space that the SCOBY will take) I usually pour the water into the jar from a height so that a lot of air is incorporated (SCOBY likes air.)
Add the SCOBY to the jar and cover with the coffee filter and a rubber band.
The rule of thumb is 8 days to brew. This can vary with the temperature, taking longer on cooler days, and the size of your SCOBY. Use a sharpie marker, on the glass jar, to jot down the date of when you started. A few swipes with a scrub pad will get it off for the next cycle.
The brew will be ready when it's more sour than sweet. I like to brew it extra sour (the more sour, the more organic acids are present.) You can then decant into other containers for the 2nd ferment. I use Grolsch bottles with the swing-top for this since I want it more fizzy. You can decant into another jar if you don't have Grolsch bottles or don't mind it not being as fizzy. You can add additional flavorings like a chopped up strawberry or some lemon juice for the 2nd ferment. The extra sugar in the fruit/juice (you can also use 1/8 teaspoon of sugar) will feed the yeast to produce even more fizz. I only fill the Grolsch bottles up to where the bottle tapers into the neck. This is to give the CO2 gas enough room to expand. Be careful! The pressure can cause the bottles to explode. Leave the bottles out to continue fermenting. I "burp" the bottles every couple of days to release excess pressure.
At one point, I was up to drinking about a quart a day. Now, I'm drinking about an 8 oz. cup/day. You may want to start out as little as a tablespoon a day depending on how you're detoxifying (herxheimer reaction.) Drink plenty of water since the kidneys will excrete the toxins.
Kombucha is said to help Arthritis symptoms by dissolving the crystals that form in the joints. I believe this is how it's helping the gout symptoms that I'm prone to have.
Brewing your own kombucha is very much like having a pet. You have to take care of it on it's schedule. How much time you spend depends on a couple of factors.
My current setup: I have 2 1-gal. jars in rotation on a 14 day brew cycle. I decant each of those jars every 7 days. From start to finish (including clean-up time) decanting these a jar takes about 15 mins.
If you have the space, another great way to save time is by preparing a large batch of the sugar tea, keeping it in the refridgerator in 1-gal. glass jars. I've purchased a 12-qt. stainless steel stockpot since writing out the single 1-qt. sugar tea preparation instructions above. I've been able to make enough for 8 batches (multiply everything by 8: 2 gals. of water, 24 green, 16 black tea bags and 12 cups of sugar) at once. So, using this big pot, I only boil up the tea once every 2.5 months.
Note: sometimes, because of the sugar, the lids to the jars will be difficult to remove.
Some tips:So, with these notes in mind, I spend a total of 15 minutes every 7 days plus the time to prepare the big batch of sweet tea every 2.5 months. I find this acceptable for my situation.
I found mine on craigslist for free. You can check the NYC craigslist to see if you can find one. I'm hesitant to send one to NY since it's so hot now. Even with two day delivery via FedEx, the hot summer temperatures will most likely kill it.
There is another option. Check out:
http://www.gtskombucha.com/kombucha.htmlThe website says it's sold at Fairway and Whole Foods in NY. You can get a bottle for about $3-$4. Pour it into a vinegar disinfected glass jar covered with some of the sugar tea/extra water then cover with the coffee filter. The SCOBY should spontaneously develop within a few weeks. It'll be very small/thin but will eventually grow... and grow and grow. Make sure you get the Original Raw version (no flavoring added.) I've never tried it but from what I hear, it's much sweeter than homebrewed. You can get a second bottle to drink/to try. You can brew about a gallon of your own for less than $2 (the biggest cost for me being the bottled spring water.) The above procedure may sound complicated at first but it's really not when you get the hang of it. It's overall "easier" than kefir which require daily care vs. once every 7 days for the kombucha. I've explained to the parientals that if you had to choose one between the water kefir and the milk kefir, choose the milk kefir. If you had to choose one from all three, I'd go with the kombucha... but I'm continuing with both the kombucha and the milk kefir to get the widest spectrum of probiotic benefits.
You can join the:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/original_kombucha/Yahoo group as I have and explore the archives for some great information. This is where I learned about the pre-steep technique to remove most of the caffeine.
A word about kefir before I end this email. Drinking 3 cups/day was too much for me. I've reduced the amount I make daily and I've starting making the the curds again:
just drinking the drained whey. This will be high in the probiotics. You can use the curds like cream cheese. I have it either with unrefined sea salt and garlic or with preserves. I'd suggest draining overnight in the refrigerator as I've discovered that draining at room temperature tends to make it very yeasty tasting (like bread or beer.)
I got the "Heating Mat 17 watt" from the Happy Herbalist in the "Accessories" section of the menu on the left. It's a couple of bucks cheaper there than from Amazon but they're really backed up on orders and might take awhile to ship. I did find them locally at Roots Garden Supply, cheaper too ($24.95.) The aquarium thermometer strips you can get at most pet shops that have fish supplies for about $2/each. I like to keep my jars at around 72 to 75 degrees F. Use one, two or three towels to cover like a blanket as needed. If you've washed the towel(s) in heavily perfumed detergent, you might wind up with funky smelling/tasting brew. You can fit up to 6 gallon jars on one of these mats. You may want to put a couple of thick rubber bands on each jars, like bumpers, so they don't clang together. You probably will not want to put the heating mat directly on the floor. A piece of plywood on top of some old phone books would be good. I was lucky enough to score a couple of old heavy-duty wheeled carts off of FreeCycle. One of which, I'm using as my "Fermentation Station" :).
As for glass jars, I'm forwarding an email I sent to one of my friends.
I'm using 6 1-gal. glass jars, like pickle jars. I decant a jar every 7 days after a 14 day brew cycle that I'm currently doing over the winter using the heating mat. I'm getting about 8 servings (~9 oz./day) from each of these jars. This is what I'm using the paper coffee filters (mentioned below) to cover. Finding these jars may be the hardest part :). The "easy" way would be to buy new ones like these (don't know how much shipping costs from there.) Locally, F. H. Steinbart or Homebrew Exchange sells them for about $5.
If you want "prettier" (and larger) jars (more expensive too) you can check out these two options from Target:
I've seen these jars in stock at the store so no need to factor shipping. You could probably use either a couple of thicknesses of cloth handkerchiefs to cover the Heritage Hill Jar or the large 12-cup Bunn coffee filter papers to cover the Montana Canister. [I did eventually get a couple of the Montana Canisters. It didn't work out well for my 14 day brew cycle so I went back to the 1-gal. jars... I'm now using these big jars for master tonic :).]
A couple of other options to explore are:
If you go with one these, make sure you get one with a plastic spigot. People are using these for "continuous brewing" kombucha. I haven't tried this method but may in the future. With continuous brewing, you simply draw off your daily dose with the spigot and replenish with fresh pre-made sugar tea that you'd keep in the fridge.
Let me know when you want to take the plunge and I'll slap you with one of my jellyfish :P.