My Kombucha hasn't been flatter. It's so Dead and I want so badly to make it UnDead! I recently redid the perpetual brew batch that I have going on my kitchen counter because every single time I bottle it I get nothing but flat vinegar. No bubbles whatsoever. Yuck. Seriously yuck. But I didn't want to waste all that time, energy and not to mention expensive sugar down the drain! So I revived my Kombucha! *(note, no Zombie Virus required)
What you need (or don't need)-
a swing top bottle filled with flat as a pancake kombucha
a little bit of apple juice
so guts (no not literally!)
What I did.
It's seriously this simple. I filled the bottles to the shoulders with flat, sour, undrinkable kombucha. I added a dash of applejuice (unfiltered if possible) and then...dun dun DUN!.... I cut off a piece of my mother SCOBY and stuck it in the bottle. And VOILA! Two days of cold weather kitchen later I have so many bubbles, I had to open the bottle over the bathtub (I kid you not!) so it wouldn't explode on the computer screen. Just a tiny, tiny piece, of course. Maybe half the length of my pinky finger. Oh, and I promise, my Zombucha won't eat your brains. But it may make you a zombie slave to it for life. Just maybe.
Yup. It worked. :)
Go get your bubble on!
Very nice cannibalism of you mother scoby!
ReplyDeleteI know you always add juice which adds extra sugars for the probiotics to metabolize but I wondered if you were getting a build up of expired yeasts in the bottom of the container? If the yeasts sink, they can create more alcohol which in turn kills them and builds up layer of expired yeasts. It *could* make a dead zone and is the reason I never tried a perpertual brew.
So while I can't say I have ever tried your brew method, I wonder if saving some kombucha as a kicker and washing out the sun tea jar would help? Maybe, maybe not. Just thinking.
Oh, and Ben always tells me to keep bubbly drinks cold and open cold so that they don't overflow. It's things like when we forgot the ice packs for the cherry-almond water kefir at the "C" baptism last August that reminds me of how important that is! Fountains of water kefir are one way to celebrate a baptism.
I meant to tell you last night that this post has an awesome name! I forgot to tell you, so I thought I would comment.
ReplyDeleteOh, and when Ben I talked about your fermentation lagging, he had a thought in his beer brewer's brain. Industrial fermenters have a cone shaped bottom so you can drain off the sediment of expired yeasts. He thinks that your ubercool cermanicist hubby could make you one. Maybe take a field trip to the brewing shop to get specs and then turn him loose in the studio. It would be seriously gorgeous, to boot, then.