Are you able to buy local or online only? In my little burg there is no unflavored 'buch to be found anywhere, even in the burgs nearby. Fortunately, I had good luck buying a scoby with starter tea online.
@@potterma63 oh, I see. We have a couple of brands who sell different types of kombucha. I once bought a scoby online with a tiny amount of starter tea, it was very slow to ferment. Then I tried to pour a 0,3l bottle of local brand kombucha into 1,5l of sweet tea and magic happened! It took only a week for healthy scoby to grow and it tastes better than previous one. Now my "better" scobys have multiplied and I use them in most of my batches 👍
To me, dehydrated scobys are for making art. Liquid is everything when brewing. I have done many brews with no scoby. As long as the starter is acidic enough, and you don't move your vessel, and have it in a warm spot, it will make a brand new, beautiful scoby
Then only reason why the cellulose does anything is becasue it holds liquid very well and has the tea inside. So in reality it's the liquid inside that makes anything. On top of that - poeple have it the other way around. Fermenting creates cellulose - cellulose is the the product, not the producent.
I had an issue with the pellicle I bought from the source you recommend. After weeks of little progress in my brew and while exchanging emails with them (their customer service is responsive and helpful), I decided to try using a bottle of store-bought raw, unflavored kombucha. (The two-letter national brand.) By the time the pellicle seller offered to send me a new one, I realized the bottled kombucha had produced a functioning brew. It has been producing good kombucha for about a year now. Side note: I quickly got tired of dealing with small batches of kombucha and little bits of fruits into small bottles so I upscaled to a three-gallon (11L) brew vessel and do the second ferments in half-gallon growlers. If you have the patience for the micro-est of microbrews, my hat's off to you. I prefer to spend less time per ounce but still make lots of great tasting booch.
International Air travel and shipping. That’s a good reason. International border laws are different and unclear on fermented products. And it becomes more complicated if it involves moving organic material. Although I agree with you on all point’s, I think dehydration is a workaround as it is technically not alive nor fermented food at that point. Plus wet content is easily detectable. Ps. I have no experience whatsoever in kombucha. Just wanted to weigh on on the topic. Thank you for your valuable content.
Celluose is the product, not the producent. The only reason why it makes the fermentation faster is becasue it has the tea inside. You can just use a little bit more starter tea and get the exact same effect. You don't need a cellulose. The only thing it actually does is makes fermenting more complicated and adds a layer of mold risk.
Can we sanitize the utensils and bottles using distilled vinegar wipes and dried them up before adding the sweet tea or ready brewed kombucha to the bottles? Does it will effect the quality?
My question is more about dehydrating my own "SCOBY hotel", as I don't have a lot of ways to use the many SCOBYs that keep forming, and I hate to just throw them out. Any other suggestions for what to do with them? (Don't live on a farm, no pets.)
i dont understand why they would even go through all of that when all they have to do is go buy a bottle of kombucha from the health food store or even walmart, which is where i had to get mine from .. it was a flavored bottle but i got the ginger and it still brewed up and formed my SCOBY just perfectly .. i now do a continuous brew in a 2.5 gallon decanter with a dispensing spout .. i love my kombucha plain and even when i do do a 2nd ferment for a flavor, i just cant seem to hold out long enough to let it do its thing .. lol i drink it to soon ..
Between each one of us and whoever in the world, there are a maximum of 6 steps. So, please, as I did, just explore human relations and find you scoby in those 3-4 steps. You just need a bottle of fresh made kombucha to let go acidic and form a new pellicle. You can find it: I'm sure.
