One Crazy Booch

Fourth (Happy) Brew - Bottling

2011-03-06T16:47:00.002-05:00

March 6, 2011 - Bottling "Happy"

Since I worried about salad dressing last time, I was less worried when this batch went 2 full weeks, nevertheless, I was concerned when I sampled it. Generally I was trying to taste it after 7 days, and sample every day after. That worked for the first batch, but then life set in, and it seemed I had little to no time during the week. Two weeks it is, in total isolation.

I could drink this stuff straight from the tap, no flavoring needed. This happy brew is mighty fine as it is. If you look close, you can see the fine bubbles. I've grown some wicked scobies now, and they are doing the job mighty fine.

Take a look at the family. I emptied out the hotel as well for this little photo opp. Notice the little guy on the left, he became the gatekeeper of the hotel. Scobies is the craziest people.

Simplification is what will keep me doing this for a long time. This batch is going to be Blueberry Ginger (thank you Lee for the great idea). I always try to leave one bottle plain to see how the naked booch tastes. I have a good feeling about this one.

I also decided to grate my ginger (frozen), and try varying amounts in bottles. The little chunks of ginger I am using just are not imparting the flavor in my booch. I want some serious ginger.

Fyi, the spigot is overrated, this is a slow lazy way to bottle.

Like before, I'm making 5 bottles as I needed some booch for the Scoby Hotel. I would really like to increase the size of this batch, 5 bottle is just not enough for the work. For now though 2 Scobies, 2 weeks is the perfect recipe. This may change when the weather gets warmer

BB/Ginger - 15 Frozen Blueberries, 1 TSP grated (frozen) Ginger

Status - Unopened

BB/Ginger - 15 Frozen Blueberries, 1 TSP grated (frozen) Ginger

Status - Unopened

BB/Ginger - 25 Frozen Blueberries, 2 TSP grated (frozen) Ginger

Status - Unopened

BB/Ginger - 25 Frozen Blueberries, 2 TSP grated (frozen) Ginger

Opened - March 11, 2011 - Somewhat sour, can feel the ginger burn on the back of the throat. Maybe too sour. Light fizz. OK. very strong

Plain - 1 TSP Sugar

Opened - March 20, 2011 - Big fizz, very bubbly. Awesome plain taste. One of my favorite plain versions thus far. Very very good.

Stay Happy

Fourth (Happy) Brew

2011-03-06T16:16:00.000-05:00

Sunday, Feb 20

In keeping with the theme of previous batches, I felt that given my sour mood of the post holiday, vegan funk. I thought a "Happy" brew would be just the thing. So hopefully my additional sentinel will watch over my latest creation

Ingredients

5 spoons of High Mountain Oolong
1 cup 365 Organic Sucunat
2 Eldest Scobies (I moved Hannah's original to the hotel)

I am trying a variety of teas, so this batch is 100% Oolong. This was fancy stuff my wife brought back from Singapore. When its done, its done.

Its a fine looking weed

I opted for a 25 minute steep, although I confess, I lost track of the time after the timer went off, so this is somewhere between a 25-50 minute steep (eek), I'm sure it will be fine. I had good success with the Sucunat, so I elected to use it again as well.

25 Minute steep (or thereabouts), and added sucunat. Poured remaining 8 cups of water in the vessel, and then added the sweet tea.

Time to get this covered up and put away

Interestingly enough, I waited a while longer than before to get this batch going, and my starter that I had set aside:

Had grown a little Scoby on the top. Damned if these aren't the craziest things.

Last time a 2 week window seemed to work just fine, and based on work, and my general attitude, I would say I'm not going to get around to checking this for a few weeks. Hopefully it becomes a Happy brew

Keep watch

Third (Bashful) Brew - Bottling

2011-02-18T22:12:00.002-05:00

February 12, 2011 - Bottling

This one went way longer than I had intended, and I seriously thought this was going to be a large batch of salad dressing. I noticed that when I tasted it, it was much more naturally fizzy than the others I have done at this point. It was rather good, and sour. I could have poured a big glass of this over ice, and left it.

I pitched my shredded Scoby from the last time, and noticed I got a much nicer one this time. The new Scoby is n the top right. Try and guess which one came from Hannah... You guessed it, the beauty on the bottom. Hannah has some nice Scobies ;)

I decided to simplify somewhat. One bottle with Black Raspberries, one with Red Raspberries, and this time Meier Lemons with about twice the ginger. I also decided to bottle one plain with a little rock sugar just to see what would happen.

I'm making 5 bottles as I used a bottle to start a Scoby Hotel. This is a cool picture before I extracted and separated the scobies. Look at how they form a nice tight seal across the top. This I think is a big reason why I got a nice fizzy batch. 2 scobies are the way to go

Only 5 bottles this time

Frozen Red Raspberries - Small Handful

Feb 25 - Opened - This was mega fizzy, so much so i lost half the bottle on the counter. very strong and sour

Meier Lemon/Ginger - 3 slices of lemon, about 1/2 oz. of juice and about 10 pieces of ginger

Mar 6 - Opened - Big fizz, still in need of more ginger, but it was very tasty!

Frozen Black Raspberries - Small Handful

Feb 19 - Opened - Light Fizz, similar to lindedmans lambic, very nice. will do again soon

Plain - Teaspoon of German Rock Sugar

Feb 20 - Opened - Almost no fizz, light sour, plain , simple. just ok

Meier Lemon/Ginger - 3 slices of lemon, about 1/2 oz. of juice and about 10 pieces of ginger

Feb 19 - Opened - Not so tart, lt fizz, still need more ginger, need more 2nd ferment time too

Third (Bashful) Brew

2011-02-18T21:51:00.000-05:00

Sunday, January 30

I decided I needed other watchers over my booch, since the cracked vessel, the shredded scoby, and the mediocre performance on my last batch. I decided to simplify a little, only do two flavors, and appoint another sentinel. Bashful.

Ingredients

2.5 spoons of Lychee Black Tea
2.5 spoons of High Mountain Oolong
1 cup 365 Organic Sucunat
Original KK Scoby, my eldest Scoby

Decided on a mix, instead of all black tea. I was running low on Lychee

These are both very good teas, and make a nice pair.

As before, all tea was steeped and tempered prior to putting in the vessel. I don't need another busted contain. I also tried using Sucunat, as opposed to straight sugar. I just like saying it... Not sure if I'm saying it right, but it is fun.. Imagine this with a thick southern drawl "Suck-You-Nat"

35 Minute steep, and added sucunat. Poured remaining 8 cups of water in the vessel, and then added the sweet tea.

Time to get this covered up and put away

This one is going to sit awhile. My schedule indicates that I have a few trips to make, one in which I plan to see the Steelers win their 6th super-bowl (2/18 ok, that was a disaster, hope it doesn't rub off on my kt)

Keep watch

Second Brew - Bottling

2011-01-28T23:26:00.024-05:00

January 28, 2011 - Bottling

Did not get a chance to check this much, so I was hoping that the booch would be good. Tonight it just started to change from sweet to sour, so I knew the time was right.

And then there were three.

The baby scoby is the one on the left. Hannah's is the pretty one on the bottom. Not sure why my scobies look so poor, I'll have to get a little more scoby advice going forward. The new one on the left is in a few shreds, not looking healthy at all. Hopefully she'll get better

On my own this time, no flavor packets from Hannah. Since the ginger really stood out on the last batch, I wanted to incorporate it as much as possible. Making 3 flavors:

Dark Red Cherries. If you can identify them, let me know. This time of year at Kroger, they are just labeled "cherries".

Lemon and Ginger has been a popular flavor in twitter-land. I'm showing rind here, but I also made a bottle with lemon slices instead. I want to see which is better.

My daughter brings these home from school all the time. Never seems to eat them, so I thought I would try them as well. In this pic I show slices, but I also grated rind to compare the two

My spigot is slow. Its a personal issue.

One glass left which I shared with Maddie over ice. Actually she only took a sip, she claimed it had a winey taste to it. Which just dawned on my how she knew what wine tasted like hmmm.

Clementine/Ginger - ounce of Clementine juice, 3 slices of clementine, 3-4 cubes of ginger

Open - February 4 - Just OK, same as the others, too light on the ginger.

Dark Cherry - 5-6 cherries pitted, chopped up

Opened - February 12 - Sour cherry. Big Fizz, very good. Nice dark read color.

Lemon/Ginger - ounce of lemon juice, rind of 1/2 lemon, 3-4 cubes of ginger

Open - February 3 - Almost no fizz, way too lemony, almost no ginger. Drinkable, but barely

Dark Cherry - 5-6 cherries pitted, chopped up

Open - February 4 - Very good, nice and red. fizzy. Very tart.

Lemon/Ginger - ounce of lemon juice, 3 lemon slices, 3-4 cubes of ginger

Open - February 12 - Better, crazy fizzy, but still too tart, and needs more giner

Clementine/Ginger - ounce of clementine juice, grated rind of 1 clementine, 3-4 cubes of ginger

Open - February 10 - Mildly fizzy, good, but needs more ginger. Mild orange flavor

Inaugural Kombucha Brew - Bottling

2011-01-23T17:07:00.001-05:00

January 13, 2001 - Bottling

Tasted the booch, and it was prime to bottle.

As I was told, my scoby got "busy" and made another one during this process. These things are rather weird, but its what makes it work. Not sure what I'll do when I build up a collection of these. For now, I just have the pair.

On to setting up the bottles;

I'm using the three flavors that Hannah provided, POM (Pomegranate juice) for 2 of the bottles, then I plan to leave one unflavored to try and get the taste of the plain Kombucha.

Bottling was a relatively easy process, the spigot on the "Target" vessel was pretty easy for this

I decided to label the caps, and then document the flavors. I used the following:

Plain - No flavors added

Opened - January 21 - Light fizz. Awesome taste, nice color. Possibly add a little sugar on the next one to get some fizz

KK Flavor - Organic Elderberry Rose Petals

Opened - January 26 - Very fizzy. not very sweet, mildy sour. nice flavor. Slight essence of the flowers. very mild.

KK Flavor - Organic Chai Spice

Opened - January 26 - Decent fizz, but very spicy, not my favorite. Too much spice flavor

KK Flavor - Organic Gojiberry Organic Ginger

Opened - January 23 - Best fizz of the batch, very "gingery". Not sure what the Goji berries added from a flavor perspective, but this is the best one of the batch so far

POM - 1/2 cup POM Pomegranate juice.

Opened - January 17 - Light fizz, very nice. Good pomegranate flavor

POM - 1/2 cup POM Pomegranate juice

Opened - January 22 - Better fizz than first one, probably due to longer 2nd fermenting. Very good, maybe too much POM flavor, if done again, may cut back on the amount used

Second Brew

2011-01-17T16:47:00.002-05:00

Saturday, January 16

Lesson learned on this batch. Do not pour scalding hot water into a (I assume) cold container. Otherwise you may hear a "pop" and this may occur:

This delayed my next brew, as I needed to take another trip to Target.

Sunday, January 17

Ingredients

5 spoons of Lychee Black Tea
1 cup 365 Organic Sugar
Original KK Scoby, and new offspring

New batch started today. Used some existing black tea.

Hopefully this doesn't suck. The tea looked reasonably well. Nice and dark. I made a little batch in my tumbler, and although it looks nice and rich, its rather mild for as dark a tea as it makes.

Learned lesson, and steeped tea and sugared in the pot

35 Minute steep, and added sugar. Poured remaining 8 cups of water in the newly christened vessel, and then added the sweet tea.

Note that I'm not a professional food blogger, or else I would have cleaned up a wee bit. Notice the small monkey on the counter. This will now be known as my Hanuman batch.

My new scobies in the new home.

As always, Snow White stands vigil. See you in a week.

Inaugural Kombucha Brew

2011-01-09T21:54:00.003-05:00

Brew started Sunday Jan 2, 2011

Ingredients

1 batch KombuchaKamp organic tea
1 cup KombuchaKamp raw sugar
1 SCOBY from KK

Boiled 4 cups water, disolved sugar, added 8 more cups cold filtered water and added SCOBY

Covered with the supplied cloth and tucked away for safe keeping

Update Sunday Jan 9, 2011

Tapped the brew and tried the raw Kombucha. Still tasted very sweet, but there was some slight essence of vinegar starting to evolve. Will let rest for 7 more days.

Picked up case of swing top bottles (brown)

Update Wednesday Jan 12, 2011

Was advised by Hannah to check more frequently. Tasted again, still a little sweet, but more tang. Will sample nightly from here on out.

Update Thursday Jan 13, 2011

Time to bottle. Slightly sweet, acidic, some good sourness going, but in a perfect state.