Quick Start Guide to Homemade Kombucha (First Fermentation) 

Oh my freaking God! Can you please teach everyone else on youtube how to do instruction videos? You are the best! Informative, you get right into it, and the quality is awesome! Keep up the amazing work! I'm sending a link to this video to everyone I share a scoby with! You rock!

I can't tell you how many times I've watched this video but tonight I MADE MY FIRST BATCH!!!!

this is the best kombucha getting started video I’ve seen so far.

I made a SCOBY from scratch..... no starter scoby..... I put 2 bottles of raw kombucha into a 1/2 gallon mason jar.... after 3 weeks I noticed a scoby on the top it slowly sank and then another one grew on top.... at 4 weeks I made a sweet tea mixture and gently added it .... so that was a super easy way to make a scoby from scratch

Hey, I just wanted to thank you for being a competent human being that makes helpful, informative videos. I've been trying to learn how to brew through RU-vid and you are the first person that I've come across that makes quality, intelligible videos. Thanks again!

The first time I tried it I had no idea what to expect and I didn’t think it worked. It just sat there. But I’m pretty sure I did it wrong. These videos are excellent. I wish I would have had them the first time. I think I just read the directions on the scoby the first time. Getting my fresh scoby today as well as a heating wrap. I’m much more confident after watching these videos.

Great video. I too prefer to brew for 15 minutes instead of 5. But I prefer 1 cup of sugar instead of 3/4s. Thank you!

Love your videos! As others have said you’re direct and keep to the point. Can’t wait till my tea is ready so I can start flavoring. Will definitely watch your Video on flavoring and bottling

I'm loving your channel. Thank you so much for all of the info and clear instructions. I love that you have multiple videos pretty much explaining all of the questions that have popped into my head as I go. 🙂

I absolutely love your videos! Straight to the point, very informative, ver well explained!

Just started my first batch! Thank for your Very informative videos. They are inspiring, clear-cut and professional.

Your videos are by far the best! I am so glad I came across to you’re videos because they helped me understand the process better and make good kombucha. You are so good at this! Thank you 💕

You're amazing at you do! Please don't stop making these videos, it makes a difference that you don't give up. I appreciate what you do so much!

Doing my first batch of kombucha right now ! Your videos have been really helpful :) Thanks !

Making the tea concentrate and then adding it to the cold water was perfect! I didn't have to wait around for the heat to go down. Thank you!

The production quality of this video is amazing!

Very well explained. So clear it gives me confidence to give it a go. I've subscribed. Thank you 😊

I just watched several of your videos. I want to say you are doing a great job! Very informative, straight to the point, and very pleasing to the eye. Keep up the good work!

Very informative videos and the length is just right. They're neither too short nor excessively lengthy - each displays written instructions. Clear, concise steps without the ususal RU-vid nonsense. Also, love the Ina Garten reference at the end. I was so impressed, I subscribed!

this is the best bucha making video I've seen, very straightforward! thanks for making them!

Excellent video! Clear and concise with helpful text. Thanks for the tutorial.

Love your channel, not only informative but also appealing and so well structured! Bravo! Thanks & Happy Brewing :)

You are such a good teacher.. Amazing content. Much love keep the kombucha magic commin

I don't even like kombucha but this was in my recommended videos so I watched it. Now I'm gonna watch more of your videos because this was informative and easy to follow along

I love your videos. Thank you for making them so straightforward!

This video is absolutely fantastic, thank you so much. I've been given a scoby, some starter tea and instructions but didn't feel confident enough until I watched this. Thank you 🧡

Just prepared my fifth batch of kombucha. Seriously your videos were of great help and Im extremely happy with the results

Thank you I’m about to make my first own kombucha you made it look so simple that gives me a lot of Confidence that I can do it 🤩

Thanks for the great tips and positive vibe:). Stay well

Thank you so much for these videos! These have helped me make the best kombucha I've ever made :)

Thanks for the videos on Kombucha. 😊

Thank you!!!! Great instructions, you are a wonderful teacher!

This is the first video I watched on your channel when I began my Kombucha journey 2 months ago. Since then, I've watched all the videos and followed all your advice. I feel very confident each time I brew a new batch. My wife and I enjoy drinking Kombucha, and I even was able to convince some of my co-workers how great it tastes. Thank you!

Very concise., very well done tutorial on kombucha. Thank you so much!

Loved your video! Thank you so much! ☺️

Of all of the videos, I have watched yours is the best. You have answered a lot of my questions. Made my first batch 2 days ago, I will be on the lookout for mold, (I saw your reply to someone else about not having enough starter tea). Also, I loved the concentrated tea and then adding cold unfiltered water tip. It took forever for a gallon of water to cool down.

This video is so well done. The way you provide your info is VERY well done. I hope you make money off these vids since your level of skill warrants it in my opinion

I bottle my first batch...it is so yummy!!!! Thank you for the video, I followed the direction and it worked so perfectly my Kombucha is better tasting than store bought.

Love your professionalism, love your personality, love your voice !

I make my flavours for my kombucha from making a sugar water mix also except i use twining infused cold water tea, It works well, I don't need to have any fruit, just these flavoured tea bags. They come in lots of differant fruit flavours. Love your videos. I have scobys 6 years old, I made, it myself my first infact.i made him myself yrs ago, his quite a big boy, but I just love him, it still makes fantastic kombucha and I have a few hotels with scobys in them, they all come from my first scoby, Who was made with a flavoured bottle of kombucha, which was all I could get in Australia, it worked, thanks for your videos there great.

Thank you for your videos! Very helpful chanel.

Update!!!! My first batch went so well thanks to you. I think it tastes even better than the store. No mold, no issues thanks to clear cut instructions! I experimented with triple berry and mango mint. Both are equally glorious! Can’t wait for My second batch!!!

Great video. One suggestion: the best reason for putting the cold water in your glass container first is safety. Hot water in cold glass can cause them to shatter. And that’s a pretty big mess to clean up!

Great professional video thank you so much

Thank u for that good information.

This channel is awesome. Thank you.

I got SCOBY from a friend and didnt has idea what I was doing but thanks to you my first batch was successful and didn't had any fear at all.

Excellent presenter and very knowledgeable, well done.

Great vid, thanks!

Presentation skills! Come through Mamma!

I couldn't figure out why you added so much sugar to the concentrate for 4 cups. Then I saw you dilute it and thought... why would you dilute it? Then I saw that you didn't have to wait for it to cool down. GENIUS!!! Other instructional videos I saw said to make the sweet tea the night before and let it cool overnight. This is so much better and without the risk of growing bacteria overnight with it sitting out. Thank you!

Just watched this video for like, the 18th time BUT THIS TIME I was making my first batch!! 🤗

Amazing!

Just donated a cup of coffee. Read just enough on the website that I love your heart and feel confident I can do this--after reading your site and viewing your videos. God bless. 💗

My sister and I just finished out f1 and it turned out great!! Even the raw kombitcha is amazing!! 💜💜 On to f2... We have raspberry mint, honey lemon, and citrus rosemary!

Nice, concise, direct. (Organic sugar not necessary)

That chopping board is awesome.

Thank you very much.🥰

Thank you! 😊

HEY HELLO ANGELICA I WANT TO TELL YOU I REALLY LIKE THE WAY YOU HAVE DONE ALL THIS VIDEOS, YOU ARE REALLY A SUPER STAR!! AND THANKS TO YOU I BEEN DOING GREAT KAMBUCHA !!

Appreciate your videos...they helped me starting out my first batch and I'm pretty happy with it. A tad sweeter than I expected so maybe didn't do the first fermentation long enough. I used regular sugar for a couple of bottles and apple juice for another. Very tasty. Again..appreciate the videos and your easy on the eyes so that always helps!

You are the best thanks South Africa

hello, thanks for your video's. Can you let us know how to avoid baby scoby in second fermentation? thanks

Best video I found!!! A question, what types of Tea is good to use?

Your channel is so helpful and I've been having so much fun brewing my own kombucha!! I'm really into experimenting with flavors and is wondering if you have ever tried coffee. Someone blogged about brewing with coffee during first fermentation, what are your thoughts?

Best how-to! No nonsense. So, where to get a starter? If I buy raw, plain kombucha at the store, would I use the entire bottle?

Wow just wow. So I been drinking kombucha for a year (expensive as hell, 4 dollars per bottle and am sure I spend over $1,000.00 dollars consuming this product). I drink it not for the small health benefits, but because i come to love the taste of it, and is a far better replacement for soda. I just stumbled on kombucha starter kits last week, so I purchase one, and now this Chanel, and her website and I learn so much. I just wish I had known about this 7 moths ago. Could have save so much money. Now that I know this, i hope I can replicate my favorite flavor Meyer Lemon Ginger Cayenne by Moss Beach kombucha. 🙃

It's very delicious the kombucha

My wife drinks Kombucha a lot and a lady she works with just got her her first starter kit. She felt a little overwhelmed to start the process so I found your video and decided to try for her following your video. Just brewed our first batch and sealed it and put it in the cupboard to ferment. Wish us luck! 🤞 Thanks for a really clear, concise step-by-step explanation of the whole process. Your video really helped 😊

Love your videos❤ Do you think I can add soursop leaves to the black tea when making my Kombucha?

You are the best 👍🏻🎉

Hi, Love your videos! I was wondering if I can add the room-temp starter tea into the medium hot tea, to help the tea even further get down to roomtemp? You talk about the scoby being "sensitive" to temperatures but what about the starter-tea? I'm guessing room-temp is a safer better choice so the heat doesn't kill the good bacterias and yeast in the starter-tea. Am I right? :) Did you ever try this and did it effect the end-results?

Will you do a video on the difference between Jun and kombucha?! That would be amazing. Can’t find a good one.

Amazing thank you 🙏 But what’s a scopy and how do I make my starter tea please

Love your videos. It helped a lot and I just brewed my 1st batch of kombucha 😁😁😁. I then let it ferment for a 2nd time and Flavoured it with ginger and blueberries and it made a scoby. Can I re-use the flavoured scoby?

3:01 - simple solution is to have a sink with a drain plug. If you use a soup container for boiling water or anything large and deep, you can just lower it into the sink, and run water into the sink around the container (make sure it's not glass, or it will crack), and cold water will take the hot temperature. You can cool 2 gallons in less than 20 minutes, usually around 10 minutes or so. Obviously check with your finger to see. Restaurants do that to cool hot items quickly. My family did so for years in home cooking. Since if you put the hot container into the fridge, you have extreme risk of ruining your fridge in that 1 sitting. Never put hot stuff in the fridge. Cool it first. Water is amazing in this.

Hello, I love your whole series of videos. I live in Melbourne, Australia and 1/2 the year it can get very cold here, winters are about 12 degrees celsius during daytime, with overnight temps about 2 to 8 degrees. Should I purchase a heating mat for my kombucha to get it to the correct temperature.

Thank you so much I have made my very first kombucha scoby!! ❤🎉🎉🎉🎉 I actually started with a raw kombucha from store on 11/19/23 , forgot about it a then tasted it just now 12/14/23 and it tasted good 👍🏻 😮😮😮❤🎉🎉🎉 now going my second brew !! Wwwaaahooo

Great videos with detailed into! Does less sugar (like 3/4 cup) per gallon container cause slower/longer F1 in summer months which is what I'm looking for? Also I found that my SCOBY domes-up and touches the cloth from the bubbles underneath. So I constantly need a hole cleared in the center of the SCOBY to help avoid that. What am I doing wrong where bubbles collect underneath pushing it up? Also, I heard the top of the SCOBY should be wet, so do you need to constantly submerge? Or just leave alone? Thanks so much!

Making kombucha is actually easier than the video suggests... You don't need a scoby to start. A bottle of kombucha from the store works perfectly fine. This is my own method that I tried as an experiment and it was successful on the first attempt. 1. buy a bottle of kombucha from store as starter 2. brew some tea with liquid ratio about 1:1 to the kombucha (You want the live kombucha culture to populate and dominate the environment, the higher ratio of kombucha starter the less likely other unwanted bacteria can have a chance to catch up) 3. Sweeten the tea with as much sugar as possible (sugar, similar to salt and acid, lowers water availability and discourages growth of bad bacteria. I don't agree with the video that you should dilute it before fermentation. Adding cold water is also potentially a source of contamination.) 4. Once the tea is cooled to room temperature, mix them together, put the container in a dark place and wait 5. eventually you'll get kombucha with scoby floating on top 6. repeat step 2 to multiply Once the kombucha is sour like vinegar and the scoby forms, the environment is very robust and it's really hard to mess up. You can now mix it with more tea 1:8 ratio and it should still do pretty well. I always make my tea refill very sweet and never mix it with cold water but wait for temperature to come down as I don't want to take any chances. You can always dilute before drinking.

Thank you so much for these helpful videos! Does anyone know if it’s okay if after the first fermentation it smelled a little like rotten eggs. Very mild smell but my kids thought it smelt like a fart 😂. It tasted great though, is it safe to move on? There was no mold and everything else seemed normal.

I love your videos and your website so helpful thank you for making it SO EASY! What are your thoughts on using the top vs the bottom vs mixed starter tea from a Scoby hotel/1st fermentation ? Should I pour out the top of the liquid for starter tea so there's less yeast, or from the bottom for more or mixed for an even yeast amount?

I rinse the tea leaves after brewing with the cold water to get most of the tea out of it. 😃

2 quick questions. I bottled all of my Kombucha in bottles leaving 1.5 cups with my scobie. My F2 bottles are on the shelf (1 day so far) and I added just a few grapes and strawberries to them. 1) Would this be considered tainted to use some of this for my next 2 gallons? 2) If I can use some of my kombucha that is in the bottle with a few grapes and strawberries thrown in, can I just split the "scobie" that I took off the top in 1/2 so that I can now get 2 gallons going? I was unsure how much scobie it took to make the next batch. It seems like it could even be slit in 3 sections??? Thank you again for the awesome videos!! My wholesale bottles will be here next Monday at a huge savings thanks to you.

I used about 1/2 cup of home-made apple cider vinegar for the first badge and it all went really well.

wow - wish I'd 'found' you sooner! Made my first batch by boiling the whole 3 qts of water per the enclosed instructions, and as you said - waited FOREVER for it to cool down. In all fairness, it may have been recommended in case someone is on not-so-clean well-water. Watching all your videos now so I'll be better informed when this first batch is done brewing :-) Thanks!

hello ! i just want to say i love your videos. you are very knowledgeable in everything "combucha". what better person to ask about a video i seen from this channel by the name " that zero waste lady " how to tell if you have combucha vinegar eels " or something to that effect. my question is Can that really be possible and if it is does die inside of us or does it keep growing ? please if possible can you address this in a vieo because im completely freaked out about this but most all grossed out . thank you for your knowledge

Firstly, thank you for literally having advice for every situation with Kombucha! If you cut this recipe in half do you still do 3/4 cup of sugar?

I just made a gallon batch. Usually I would put 2 cups of starter tea for that amount, but I misjudged my scoby hotel's tea amount and only had a little over a cup and a half. Will it be ok??? Will it just take longer to brew now? Or did I jack everything up lol?? Also, does the number of scobys in a brewing vessel affect brewing time?? Just curious. Love your channel btw!!

I can never find unflavored kombucha. So after watching your video or how to grow your own a Scoby I am finally making my own. I did use a ginger kombucha. Hopefully it works

Hi I followed your recipes on how to make kombucha. 4 cups of boiling water 6 bag of blk tea. I cooled then put 8 more cups of distilled water 3/4 cup of sugar. 2 cups of store bought kumbucha, then when I received my scoby in a bag of liquid from Amazon, I dumped everything in the tea. Did I do it right?😊

😍 where did you get your tea kettle and French press!? Super cute.

Oh man I didn't have enough starter tea! I realize that watching you! It's been at least 4 days may 5 days! 😭😭😭

Great tutorial! Question. I understand black tea is most beneficial for the scoby. All I have in the house is green tea. Will this be good enough or would it be wise to get some black tea to add to it? This is a new scoby that I just got from a friend. It's quite big though. 5.7 oz and 6 inches across.

Awesome! How can I find out those measurements in liters and the temperature on celcious? Thank you!

Help me. I don't have refrigerator so how to keep kombucha for long(2 weeks) ?

Hi! Your videos are so helpful! I made the mistake of putting 10 teabags + sugar into a 1/2 gallon jug instead of a gallon jug. it's been a week and my booch still tastes a lot like tea, there is a thin scoby that has formed at the top though! I have another1/2 gallon jug so at this point do you think the best thing to do would be split the batch in half between the two jars and add more water to each of them and keep checking in on it? Or do you think that I should wait with this jar and see if it ferments more? Thank you!

dont put hot things in the fridge to cool down, the temperature of the fridge will go up a few degrees and things in the fridge will start to go bad faster, specially the things closer to the hot object

Hey thanks for the great videos. I was just wondering about the starter tea if I need to add some starter tea from the store to my scoby does it have to be uncarbonated unflavoured or will carbonated flavoured do. Thanks

Hi Angelicaa ! I loved your videos !! I have a question about something i do : leting the leaf tea or tea bags more time in the water like all night is it wrong or not ? I was doing it to let the water get colder and because i thought it will get more concentrate on nutrient for the scoby but im actually not sure