Blighty Baby Brewing Instructions
If you can make up a cup of tea, you can brew kombucha!
Prepare
- Sterilise Everything: Wash and sterilise all equipment including the brewing jar, tea bags, and bottle. Also, wash your hands thoroughly.
- Boil Water: Heat 825ml of water to boil.
- Dissolve Sugar: Add 50g of organic cane sugar to the boiling water, stirring until fully dissolved.
- Steep Tea: Place 7g of Blighty Brew tea in a reusable tea bag and steep in the hot sugary water for 10 minutes. Black tea should be steeped at 95°C, green tea at 80°C. Over steeping tea brings out more tannins which can create an unpleasant bitter flavour.
- Cool Down: Remove the tea bag and allow the sweet tea to cool to room temperature.
- Add SCOBY and Starter: Transfer the sweet tea to the glass brewing jar. Add the SCOBY and all the starter tea from the package.
- Cover and Store: Secure our custom jar cover over the mouth of the jar. A tea towel and elastic band will also work. Leave somewhere snuggly (24-28°C) and dark for 5-9 days. Avoid moving the jar during this time to let the kombucha ferment undisturbed. Lullabies optional.
- Reserve Starter for Next Batch: After fermentation, remove the SCOBY along with 175ml of kombucha to reserve as starter for your next batch. You always need to retain some starter fluid (10%-20%) for your next batch.
- Bottle the Kombucha: Pour the remaining kombucha into a clean glass bottle. If adding flavours, do so before sealing the bottle.
- Secondary Fermentation: Seal the bottle and leave it at room temperature for 3-7 days for carbonation to develop. Check the pressure occasionally to avoid over-carbonation.
- Refrigerate: Once the kombucha is fizzy and to your taste, refrigerate to halt fermentation and enjoy it chilled.
- Continue Brewing: Use the reserved SCOBY and starter tea for your next batch and repeat the process to enjoy a continuous supply of kombucha.
- Flavours: During the second fermentation, experiment with different flavours by adding fruits, herbs, or spices.
- Monitor Fermentation: Use the stick-on thermometer to keep an eye on the brewing temperature for optimal fermentation results.
- Experiment and find your perfect brew: Small variations in tea or sugar quantities are OK. Increase or decrease amounts to find the kombucha recipe you prefer, but never use less than 10% starter fluid in your brew. For your second batch, we recommend using up to 20% home-brewed starter fluid, as this is likely to be less strong than the fluid in our Blighty Baby. If you want to increase the volume of your next batch, scale the recipe accordingly with more reserved starter fluid.
FAQ’s
My SCOBY sank. Is it dead?
No! The buoyancy of your SCOBY is not an indication of its health. Older SCOBY often sink to the bottom of a brew and can move around. New SCOBY growth (known as a pellicle) always develops on the top of a brew but may split or sink if disturbed. This is not a problem at all, regardless of SCOBY position within the brew jar, there are loads of active bacteria and yeasts in there working their magic.
What water should I use for my brew?
Some people say it’s best to use de-chlorinated water or bottled water, but you can also use tap-water (to reduce the chloring content, allow tap-water to sit out overnight uncovered or boil for 10 minutes).
What type of tea should I use?
There are only three ingredients in kombucha: tea, sugar and culture. There is nowhere to hide, so we recommend using the best quality ingredients possible. You will taste the difference. So, when it comes to tea, we recommend organic, whole-leaf tea like our Blighty Brew Organic Teas. Black, Green or Oolong is up to personal preference. Green produces a more bitter taste and it’s a little bit trickier to achieve carbonation on the secondary ferment. Black tea creates a smoother taste. Blends are great fun and can create a completely unique flavour. Tisanes (herbal infusions like camomile) do not work as these are not actually tea.
Is temperature important?
Yes! The bacteria and yeasts in kombucha are alive and affected by temperature. Always allow the sweet tea of a new batch to cool to room temperature before adding your SCOBY and starter tea; if your tea is too hot it will kill the SCOBY, so don’t rush.
Kombucha ferments best at about 28°C. If your space is significantly cooler, brew time may need to be extended. If it gets too cold (20°C or less), the active culture may “go to sleep” making your brew susceptible to mould. Consider using a Blighty Booch & Brew Base heating matt to maintain a suitable brew temperature.
How do I know when it is brewed enough?
Personal preference considered, you are looking for a sour and tangy note. During the first ferment, begin tasting the kombucha around the 5-day mark, adjusting the fermentation duration based on your desired sweetness levels. If you find it’s too sweet, leave longer so the bacteria and yeast can continue to eat the sugars; continue tasting each day until the flavour is right to you. It can take around 7-9 days for the first ferment. Remember that during the second ferment it will continue to mature, and this is when it will become delicious!
Where should I put my Brewing jar?
Out of direct sunlight is preferable but in a warm, clean space. Don’t put near other ferments or possible contaminants like house plants or compost/bins. A dark, damp cupboard is not great. Somewhere with good airflow is ideal.
How can I flavour my kombucha?
We recommend adding flavour at the bottling stage before the secondary ferment. This keeps your primary brew pure and allows you to experiment every time you bottle. You can use herbs, spices, fruits, cordials, syrups - experiment and have fun. Whole chunks of fruit or herbs can cause a higher chance of pathogen contamination, so we do advise straining juices or infusions.
Is it mould?
Mould is one of the biggest problems in kombucha brewing and should be taken seriously. Never use a mouldy SCOBY or try to save a mouldy brew. The only thing that can be done is to discard and start fresh.
Before you toss the baby out with the bath water, is it really mould? Here are some key characteristics to look for:
Texture. Mould is dry and/or fuzzy.
Colour. Blue, black, green or white/cream
Location: Mould will grow on top of the culture, not beneath the liquid or embedded in a layer.
A new SCOBY may have grown on the surface of your brew, the layers may or may not be attached. New SCOBY growth is not always a perfect smooth pancake. Shape and colour are not indicative of the quality of your brew, a wonky SCOBY is lovely in its own way! Bumps and lumps are perfectly normal if they are smooth. It's fine if the SCOBY is bubbled or nubbly or has a rough edge. It's also ok if it's thinner in some parts than others or if it has a hole in it.
Can I brew more kombucha?
Yes! You can increase the amount of kombucha that you brew exponentially by scaling the recipe. The key is to always have a minimum of 10% starter fluid, but for best results use up to 20%.
I’ve got too much SCOBY. What should I do?
You have a couple of options; you can remove some of your SCOBY from your brew by peeling apart layers. These can be shared with friends or added to a SCOBY Hotel. Alternatively, we have experimented with lots of interesting things that can be done with SCOBY (dog treats, fruit leather, fashion accessories…) but most of the time we tend to put them in our compost.
I’m going on holiday. Do I need a baby-sitter?
You can store the SCOBY and reserved kombucha in a covered jar at room temperature. Just make sure that the SCOBY is completely covered by liquid, top up with a bit of sweet tea if needed. You can also create a SCOBY Hotel which you draw on to start each new batch.
What is a SCOBY Hotel?
A SCOBY Hotel is a jar of strong starter fluid and back-up SCOBY’s. You can store the starter tea & SCOBY in the covered jar indefinitely, taking small bits off to start a new brew. Just always make sure there is enough liquid to completely cover the SCOBY and periodically top up with sweet tea. The pH of fluid in a SCOBY hotel tends to be lower than kombucha that you would drink, more like a vinegar.