Make your own Kombucha!

Here is our home brewed kombucha that we have been tending to for a couple months now. After reading about the possible health benefits of kombucha, we tried out a few different commercial brands at the health food store (very expensive!) and decided to start brewing our own at home.  First, you have to find a person willing to give or sell you a scoby starter. After having no luck around here, we ended up buying one off of Ebay, which worked out just fine for us, but I have read mixed reviews from others. You can also search your local farmers markets, Craigslist, Locavore email groups, or maybe you have a kombucha mentor already brewing.

The person you get your baby scoby from should be able to give you directions on how they started out with theirs (brew methods vary from person to person). Now that we have a routine down, we spend about 30 minutes every 7 days brewing new tea, mixing in the sugar, and replacing the "mother scoby" into the new batch. We bottle up the ready-to-go batch and enjoy it over the week. We have tried several different types of teas in our Kombucha such as green, black and yerba and are now keeping better records to see which we like best.


The whole kombucha brewing process seems a little overwhelming at first, but like everything, once you go through the routine a few times it begins to seem like 2nd nature. I have always been super funny about things left out on the counter overnight, fermented foods, etc, so I really surprised myself about how willing I was to take on and consume something that looks very alien and just seems wrong at the beginning. As far as health benefits I can't say 100%  what they have been, but it is nice to have an alternative other than water to drink. I do feel strongly that it has helped me in the intestinal tract and keeps things healthy and regular.

 All I can say is its just one of those things that make you feel better just by drinking it :-)

-PP