percypat

Yay meg! Before you know it, you'll have baby scoobies taking over your kitchen. Haven't posted a pic in a while, here is tonight's work: 1 batch white, 1 batch green. Now I have to drink it like mad to free up a few bottles for the big jar full of black!

That sounds normal to me Carlaccini! The scoby is the white thing on the surface and the fuzzy stuff at the bottom is yeast growth. Welcome to the rabbit hole Brewing booch makes you crazy but it's so much fun

You might be onto a good thing Annabel, I'm a bit worried about this second batch of white as it doesn't seem to be growing baby SCOBY as quickly as the first one did. I'm going to try a mostly white brew next with a bit of green as a caffeine insurance policy. It's SOOOOO good though. Hubby loved it. This is the man who stopped drinking kombucha because the SCOBY was too disgusting. Now he is not only drinking it, but going back for seconds and saying it's delicious. Blackberry was total win. Black tea booch making will probably cease after I've bottled the batch currently fermenting. Will definitely put mango on the list to try Nadia! Will get a fresh one this time instead of using frozen Heh, and Annabel, I did that too. We have a designated pocket torch which is only used for SCOBY viewing. It sits on the shelf right above the jars.

Tried my first bottle of white tea kombucha yesterday and LOVED it. Hubby too. More than black tea booch. Switching white tea to the big jar once we've vacated the black batch which is currently in there. SO nice for fruit flavours. Excited about opening next bottle (in about half an hour )

A gallon jar is pretty big. If it's wide, your SCOBY will be growing outwards, not thickening up. How wide is it?

Someone suggested the SCOBY facial on my blog! I'm still too squeamish. Apparently I'm ok with eating its bi-products but not putting it on my face. Also, I don't think hubby would want to anywhere near my face if I started doing it!

megmac, my first was quite like that. Skinny, but he totally did the job. It's grown over the whole surface, hasn't it? Let's wait for a couple more opinions but I don't think you're too far away.

_____________________ It hasn't happened to me and I am pretty sure I would like it. Maybe I need to start letting my first ferment go longer ...

SaraG, don't ever be shy when it comes to sharing photos of your booch. Some of us (ie me) are nosey parkers and love pictures I bottled tonight too! Getting braver and filled the bottles right up this time.

Welcome to the fold of neurotic, crazy booch brewers Annabel! I'm fairly new to it myself, but I have discovered that it really is a lesson in patience. It's not hard to do, there's just a lot of waiting (especially when you're waiting for that first brew to HURRY UP). If you can get a SCOBY it will speed up the process. The other option is to grow your own one from a bottle of store bought booch. As for my brewing container, I found a 6 litre jar at a store at my local shopping centre. So I batch brew. The continuous brew option looks pretty nifty though, less fiddly too. Good luck It's HEAPS of fun.

Hi Vian! I made a pure white tea batch and it seems to have worked out ok. I've bottled it and am waiting another day or so for it to carbonate so I'll report back when we try the finished product. The concern is that there isn't enough caffeine in white tea. You could always add a couple of green or black tea bags to the mix to boost it.

Here is the Patrick family. Black tea, green tea, white tea and of course Frank, who it all started with. Bottled some white tonight: one white cherry, one blackberry and one blueberry. Rest of the booch from that brew got used as starter for another white batch and the batch of green. I keep reading green tea is good for bubbles. I doubt we'll keep all three types going. We'll just figure out what we like best and then go to two batches a week - one for mid week bottling and one for the weekend.

Me three. I leave the fruit in there til I'm ready to drink and then pour it into a glass through a little strainer.

Nadia, you can make yoghurt with dairy free probiotic capsules. I've done that with coconut milk, though I did add tapioca starch and agar agar to thicken it up. I know you do it with coconut meat so you wouldn't have to. megmac, I think the most important thing is to keep it out of direct sunlight. I haven't kept mine in the dark and they're growing like the clappers now. But it's definitely worth a try, KB's is thundering along too, so I'd try what she says.

Jenna, you're welcome! I love girl guns! I had one bottle of mango in my first batch and while I couldn't taste the mango (it was frozen mango - I think fresh would be better) the fizz was the best of all my flavourings. I'm guessing high sugar content. Pineapple would be good like that too I should think. I have one strawberry in this batch so hopefully that will turn out nice. Lime and mint sitting in the fridge atm, fizz looks promising. Hubby keen to try this one (mojito lover, maybe we can call this a kombito?).