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Kombucha Makers Unite; Where to ask and be answered


kb0426

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When I explain to people what kombucha is and how the scoby works I liken it to yogurt (so mainstream!). I say that yogurt is made by certain strains of bacteria that eat the sugar in the milk and produce a byproduct that makes it taste tart. Then I say that kombucha uses a different bacteria (scoby) to eat the sugar out of sweet tea (also so mainstream, ESP in Texas) and leaves a tart byproduct. Anyone can understand that and get past the ick factor. It is amazing to me how many people don't realize that beer is fermented with yeast also- and that we have facilitated bacterial/yeast cultures for all sorts of foods and drink (uh, cheese? Sourdough? Pickles?)

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Most people don't like to be that close to their food sadly.  They don't want to understand where it came from of the process of how it came to be.  I think that is one reason why, in America, we have such an obesity epidemic, if folks understood what went into the crap they ate, they *hopefully* would not eat it. 

 

That is a great, people friendly way to describe kombucha Mo!  Too bad once any of my friends smell it they don't want anything to do with it.  Too bad, their loss!

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Exactly KB, but they all drink that and it's bad for them.  I vigilantly try to convert them, I got my bestie to drink a GT's Mango so am going to try her with one of my sweeter homemade ones......we'll see.  Creating Kombucha lovers one person at a time!

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My husband loved kombucha when I brought it home from the store in a nice shiny bottle.  Now that he's seen how it's made he can't bring himself to drink more than a sip.  When I opened our first really fizzy bottle and gave him a taste you could see the internal battle on his face: he liked it, loved the fizz but just cannot get around the fact that it was made by our  slimy friend Frank.

 

Oh well, more for me!  :D

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Sophie I noticed when I use frozen mango, it didnt taste mango. When I used a fresh very ripe one, it was amazing. I did fill the bottle about 15% with the mango which I had smashed into a puree.

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Ah, so not just me then.  Maybe a good way to insure fizz if I want some plain!  This one got fizzier much faster than all the others!

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Sophie, isn't it weird how some are way fizzier and there doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason for it. My daughter is the same. Huge GT fan but she doesn't really drink my homemade. She claims it gives her a headache..???

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I thought maybe the sugar content in the mango was higher and that helped, but who knows ...  The difference between my remaining raspberry ones is noticeable and they got the same stuff!

 

A headache, really?  With hubby it's just flat-out disgust :)

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Lolz!!!! My hubinator came home with a pack of Grolsch tonight and said "See honey, I support your Whole30, I am sacrificing and drinking this so you can have more swingtop bottles"  Yeah, Uh-huh, just like you sacrificed back when I could drink and partook in 3 of my 4 Grolsch (expensive stuff, it is)!

 

Good luck Meg with bottling, did you decide on flavors?

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Some grape for sure, but maybe with some ginger and lemon added?

Definitely orange vanilla, and maybe strawberry lime? I have some gorgeous strawberries I froze, and I'm not a smoothie girl so haven't found a good use for them yet.

Any idea how to make something like gingerade? Gingerberry should be pretty easy.

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Gingerade ingredients on GT bottle are just ginger and kombucha. I have never been able to replicate it but like my hibiscus, I think the dried ginger is much different than the fresh. You can also use candied which would add to the fizz but I have not tried that..especially while on W30.

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I get something very close to gingeraide with a second ferment of ginger juice (they juice it for me at the co-op juice bar, but you could blend or puree then squeeze through cheesecloth). I've tried just cutting up fresh ginger root and putting it in, but that didn't add much flavor at all.

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So after all my whinging about everyone else getting smooth, pretty, pale SCOBYs, look what I found when I checked the big bottle of plain booch from last Tuesday's batch ...

 

IMG_20130617_121640_zps571a3d4b.jpg

 

A gorgeous little pale round baby.  This bottle isn't very fizzy so I've put some of the liquid into smaller bottles with dried fig and the baby is hanging out in the remainder.  I think I'll feed it some sweet white tea and hopefully it'll keep growing.

 

In other news, Frank and his other baby appear to morphing into an enormous Frankenbaby.

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Speaking of Grolsh bottles, I nabbed a microbrewery beer bottle off someone at the party, it's like a brown glass Grolsch :) My friend is coming over today with a dozen clear glass 750ml lemonade bottles with swing tops for me :)

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