life

“YOU WOULDN’T DOWNLOAD KOMBUCHA!”

April 14, 2025August 20, 2025 Leave a comment

Remember when I was brewing water kefir and accidentally almost made my Handsome Assistant lose an eye? As much as I loved the process (and the product), I also found that water kefir required a lot more attention than I am accustomed to from my colonies of semi-feral microorganisms. So, I’d been considering going back to making kombucha.

And remember those PSAs about video piracy from back in the day?

Joke’s on them. I would 100% download a car.

(Also, hello again! I apologize for my unannounced hiatus last week. It was my Handsome Assistant’s birthday, the world is on fire, and I was not feeling my best. I am better now and 100% back on my bullshit again.)

Anyhow, I was originally introduced to kombucha by a very sweet lady from Russia that I used to work with back when I still did Laboratory Stuff. (Predominantly a series of small, purposeful, semi-controlled explosions.) She brought me part of her SCOBY, and I used that for ages. Eventually, I fell out of the practice when my then-partner and I moved.

The trouble is, getting back into making kombucha hasn’t been super easy. Tracking down a live SCOBY isn’t always the simplest process and having them shipped through the mail can be tricky. (Of course, this is true of anything living that has to go through the mail. Bugs. Plants. Small children.)

Fortunately, there is a solution: Just kind of make your own, with a little help from the bottled stuff.

The majority of bottled kombucha on the market is raw. It has to be, in order to do the whole “probiotic” thing. This means that, even without a SCOBY, it contains what you need in order to brew more kombucha.

I’ve read posts that claim that bottled kombucha has been somehow “weakened,” and isn’t as strong as the starter culture used to produce commercial kombucha. I have my doubts about this because this would mean that it also wouldn’t be very effective as a probiotic. I’m also not sure of what kind of process would selectively weaken a probiotic culture in order to… install some kind of microbial DRM, I guess?

Even if this were the case, it doesn’t actually matter. As anyone who’s started a sourdough culture or accidentally left a bottle of juice out for a few days can tell you, the bacteria and yeasts responsible for fermentation are all around us. The trick is to select for those, and not pathogenic bacteria or toxic fungi. If you start with bottled raw kombucha, you’re already starting with something that has the low pH and natural compounds needed to keep down populations of unwanted microorganisms. It might take a couple of rounds for a SCOBY to get to full strength, but it’ll get there. I mean, the first kombucha ever made didn’t have a SCOBY to start with. Even if all you have is a bottle of kombucha, you’re ahead of the game.

The process is easy:

A close-up of a jar of tea, showing a thin SCOBY "skin" on the surface, — If you look at the surface of the tea, you can see a thin SCOBY formed from the bottled kombucha.

Get a bottle of kombucha. Make sure it’s raw. Flavor doesn’t really matter. Drink about half to two thirds of it. Leave the goopy stuff at the bottom.
Clean a nice, wide mouth jar. Rinse it thoroughly.
Brew up some nice, strong tea in your jar. I prefer green. (While you technically can make kombucha from herbal tea, this isn’t really recommended. If you do want to do so, you’re advised to cycle between a batch of herbal kombucha and a batch of the regular kind. To start with, you’re better off working with actual tea — the stuff made from Camellia sinensis, without any other additives.)
Add a bunch of sugar. It should be very sweet, albeit not syrupy. Don’t worry about the sweetness, because the kombucha will eat most of the sugar anyway.
Allow the tea to cool to room temperature, or just slightly above. Too much heat will kill off the culture.
Swirl the bottled kombucha thoroughly to incorporate the goopy stuff into the liquid. Pour the bottled kombucha into your tea and sugar mixture.
Cover the jar with a bit of cloth, a sturdy paper towel, or a coffee filter. Secure it with a rubber band.
Put it someplace clean, warm, and dry, out of direct sunlight.
Ignore it for a while. You’ll eventually begin to see a thin, translucent “skin” forming on the top. This is a baby SCOBY! With time, it’ll get thicker.

After a week or so, your SCOBY should be a bit more substantial. Brew up more tea and sugar and transfer it to a new jar to allow it to continue to grow. The old SCOBY will break down, and a new one will form on the top. If conditions are right, it’ll gain some strength with each successive iteration. It’s a good idea to cut the SCOBY into halves so you can have two separate batches running at once — that way, if one goes weird, you’ll still have a backup.

So far, this process has been working out well for me. The SCOBY is SCOBYing, and I’m coming up with ideas for flavoring a second ferment. I’m thinking a ginger peach or raspberry and rose.

life

The Mead Experiment. An Experimead, if you will.

June 9, 2023June 1, 2023 J.Leave a comment

Last equinox, my spouse and I went to a wonderful celebration with another local Pagan group. There was dancing, singing, amazing food, and lots of great conversation — including one about brewing. Somewhere along the line, Spouse became intrigued by the process. One of the people we were talking to makes mead regularly, and made it sound simple: Get a gallon jug of water, empty about a third of it, fill it with honey, and shake it more than seems reasonable. Allow time to pass, et voilà! Mead.

I’m all about reskilling, so I was absolutely encouraging of this new interest. Brewing is both a method of preservation, and, if things go really pear-shaped, a way to create a valuable trade good.

I only had one condition: Based on my own learning process with water kefir, I wanted Spouse to do it as strictly as possible for at least the first go-’round. That meant getting the right equipment, like a hydrometer, buckets, a big pot for boiling the honey and water, cultivated yeast, the whole nine. There are a lot of valuable skills to pick up, like knowing how to sterilize equipment, accurately and precisely measure ingredients, and encourage the growth of only the fermentation organisms that you want. Once he had them down, I figured, it’d be easier and safer to do things like eyeball measurements and work with wild yeasts.

He agreed, and so we converted our downstairs half-kitchen into a kind of mad science lab, which I think is both fun and excellent.

Anyway, did you know that if you miscalculate the amount of honey you initially need, subsequently miscalculate the amount of yeast, then catch your error and try to compensate by adding extra honey, you’ll end up with something that’s both delicious and capable of stripping the paint off of an aircraft carrier?

In other words, the experiment was a success. He did create drinkable mead, though I’m pretty sure he got it to well over 20% ABV.

I guess it’s like the difference between cooking and baking. Cooking is improvisational — if you don’t like an ingredient, leave it out. If you love it, add extra. Baking is chemistry, and deviating from the base recipe will leave you with an inedible brick. There’re some things you have to do to make sure your yeast doesn’t get outcompeted by mold, but, even if you add too much of one thing or another, you’ll still get something tasty and alcoholic.

Next time, I think he’s going to try to make a melomel (especially after our apples and blueberries ripen). I really want him to try making acerglyn, a kind of mead made using grade B maple syrup and honey. I love maple syrup, and I really want to taste the effect that deep, caramelly flavor would have on the final product. Heck, maybe both! An acerglyn with apples, star anise, and cinnamon sounds incredible.

Man, now I’m hungry.

Reskilling: Learning to Brew (and how it almost shot my partner)

March 31, 2022March 30, 2022 J.1 Comment

Hello!

I haven’t updated in a while — it hasn’t been for lack of material, either. As we move into spring, I’ve been working on planting my balcony, developing new skills, and seeking out more connections. It’s the time of year for planting seeds in the anticipation for growth, and I feel it.

Anyway. You’re probably wondering about the title, so here goes: I’ve been making tibicos, also known as water kefir. This is a kind of probiotic beverage that’s made from granules that naturally develop on Opuntia cacti. These are essentially a SCOBY, kind of like kombucha, in a sort of gummy polysaccharide matrix. The balance of bacteria and yeast is quite a bit different, however, yielding an end product with a very different taste and bouquet of probiotics. Also, unlike kombucha, water kefir grains form little clear to beige squishy lumps instead of a mushroomlike “pancake.”

So, the process of making water kefir goes like this:

Boil some filtered water.
Add sugar. I usually use a half cup or so for a half gallon jar.
Make sure the sugar’s dissolved.
Let it cool.
Add the kefir grains.
Cover the jar with a piece of cloth or loose-fitting lid.
Wait 36-48 hours.
Strain the liquid into a bottle (save the strained-out kefir grains).
Add juice, crushed fruit, spices, or whatever you want the final flavor to be.
Cover the bottle with a cap, or one of those fancy swing-top corky deals.
Let it sit on the counter for another 24 hours. Burp it occasionally.
Put it in the fridge.
Enjoy.

Note the part that says “burp it occasionally” in bold letters. This is extremely important.

I’ve been working with a flavor blend that my partner and I really like. It’s about a half-cup to a cup of tart cherry juice and a cinnamon stick, in a 32-ounce swing-top fermentation bottle. There’s only one problem: It’s been very warm here, and cherry juice has a lot of sugar.

Even if you’re watching your sugar intake, the sugar content of water kefir is kind of the opposite of a problem. The fermentation agents in the grains break almost all of it down and produce CO2, a bit of alcohol, and more of themselves. In the end, you get something that’s fizzy, very slightly alcoholic, and flavorful, without being too sweet. The warmer the environment, the faster the bacteria work.

That is, if you get the ratio of juice to water kefir right for that second fermentation. And if, as I said, you burp the bottles regularly. Otherwise, you’ll get something that’s fizzy, alcoholic enough to peel paint, flavorful, not too sweet, and capable of detonating your entire kitchen and giving anyone in the room with you a traumatic brain injury.

I know this all sounds like hyperbole. I cannot emphasize enough to you how much it is not.

I popped that swing top off, and the force of the gas (from a bottle that I’d already burped a few hours ago) was enough to blow the wired-on top completely off, ricochet it off of the cabinet and into another room, and soak the ceiling in a geyser of cherry and cinnamon water kefir. I stood there in shock, holding the now half-empty bottle, while a sticky red rain fell around me. My partner, who very narrowly avoided having a wire and rubber bottle top embedded in his left temple, was in a similar state. It took a minute for the adrenaline rush to calm down, and I hope the probiotic benefits are enough to make up for the eight years the experience shaved off of our lives.

As it turns out, uncorking things can be way more dangerous than you’d think.

Anyhow, we poured out two glasses of what was left, and it was delicious. I think the fact that it was just this side of moonshine also helped calm us down a bit, which was a plus.

(Fortunately, I’ve gotten my better-ratio-of-juice-and-burping-the-bottles-often together since then, and no longer produce things that could conceivably be used to rob a bank.)

I’ve also made another version, where the water kefir grains feed on brown sugar for their first ferment. I add some lemon juice, ginger, and cinnamon for the second, and the end result is a very tasty ginger ale with just a tiny bit of sweetness. Since I have my process more or less nailed down at this point, I’m also working on adding herbs and fruits for various intentions to make drinkable potions.

Though I’m limited by space, I have a long list of skills I’d like to rediscover and build upon. Hopefully none of the others produce ersatz explosive devices.