Author: patwil03

April 16 2018

Preparation

My goal is to create a dry, moderately acidic, and complex kombucha.

 

Tomorrow I’ll be bottling 3 half gallon mason jars, brewing 3 new half gallon mason jars, and starting a SCOBY hotel. I’ll be bottling into flip top bottles. Bottles are sold as 0.5 liters (16.9oz). I’ll fill leaving a very small, a few milliliters, to minimize O2 exposure. For sugar calculations I’ll use 0.5 liters. I’ll use dextrose for bottle carbonation as it doesn’t not increase acetic acid content of the brew, unlike sucrose. It also has a more subtle sweetness, should the secondary ferment leave behind some sugar. The goal again, is to brew to as dry as possible without overdoing the acidity. I’ll use 4-5.5g of dextrose per bottle, which should yield a moderately bubbly ‘buch. I’m leaning toward the lower end of that spectrum as I don’t want the carbonation, carbonic acid/CO2, to contribute to overpowering the flavor of the tea.

 

For the new batch of four half gallon jars, the 50/50 dextrose/sucrose was very acidic. I prefered the 60/40 dextrose sucrose, this will be the ratio I’ll use for all three half gallon batches. I’ll be doing one or two oolongs, loose leaf from co-op, and I’d like to try the rest prepared from the 100g pressed cakes that Encore sells. I’ll continue to do the long brew time, 30-45 minutes, which I perceive as likely excessive but I’m assuming will maximize extraction of compounds from tea leaves. I’ll need to purchase a thermometer which measures the 180-210°F range accurately.

 

I usually use 8g of tea, but I may up it to ~10g, or more, as the flavor of the tea rarely comes through, in my experience so far. Maybe one 10g, two 13g, and one 15g of tea? Though, I sampled a mini (~3g) compressed pu’er today and it brewed an incredibly strong tea, so on second thought, I think I’ll stick with the 18g per half gallon batch because I’m using the compressed tea. I may add star anise to one or two jars as well.

 

Aside from the cultures described above, I’ll be bottling two half gallon jars of kombucha and endling their lineages as their pellicles never became vigorous and the solutions smells yeasty. These culture were sourced from OlyCultures and purchased at the Olympia westside co-op. The cultures described above are sourced from my friend Vlad. They have proven very prolific so far and produce a high acidity, which can be managed through dextrose:sucrose ratios, seemingly with great effectiveness.

 

Things I need to buy:

• Rubber bands
• Thermometer

 

Procedure for tomorrow’s brew

1. Prepare new tea batches in clean and empty half gallon jars
   1. Bring ~5 cups of artesian well water to ~200°F
   2. Fill linen drawstring tea bag with 18g of chosen tea (One of the two bricks from Encore)
   3. Pour hot water into clean half gallon jar and add tea bag
   4. Brew ~30 minutes
   5. Remove tea bag
   6. Add 68g dextrose and 44g sucrose
   7. Label
   8. Cover with metal lid and band
   9. Let cool to room temperature (~4 hours)
   10. Open and add SCOBY liquid and pellicle
       1. Save some liquid from each of the cultures from vlad to donate to make a scoby hotel
   11. Put excess pellicles in scoby hotel

There is no clear answer, theories of origins can date back at least 2,000-5,000 years years ago in China, Japan, the Caucasus, or the middle east. Within China it is theorized that monks of Manchuria or Tibet may tamed the wild brew. These areas were all connected by spice routes and kombucha eventually found its way to Europe and the rest of the world. The fact that C. sinensis tea is the choice tea that kombucha has evolved to prefer and C. sinensis is primarily grown in China and Japan makes me think that kombucha likely originated in China or Japan. Tales also exist of a monk who brought kombucha from China to Japan to cure an ailing Emperor. While kombucha’s true origins are shrouded by history, it is now enjoyed world wide and its health benefits are just beginning to be verified by science.

I read about a fantastic opportunity on the Confucius Society website. They will pay for people to go to china, including airfare and accommodations, given a set of criteria. Once Lin Crowley returns I hope to speak with her further before contacting the society directly. They recommend setting up the arrangement 9 months in advance, but maybe with some great referral and a show of commitment they may bend the rules for me. This could mean an immersive experience in China prior to attending the Wuyi University in Wuyishan.

The hosts of popupchinese.com seem to be aware that language is fluid and while a book or teacher may show you the formal way to say something, once you actually speak to a native speaker you’ll likely come off as an ass. I have gotten  couple of phrases down, but I really value this resource as more of a way to prepare myself for future immersive learning by beginning to understand some of the nuances and pitfalls of learning Chinese.

Wuyi University is in the city of Wuyishan, in the province of Fujian, China. It rests at the base of Wuyi Mountain which boasts 36 peaks and is said to be a scenic wonder of cascading waterfalls and lush forest. I am personally excited to have a new practically endless forest playground. And where there are mountains, there may very well be climbers! I hope to find local rock climbing gyms as I hear it is as popular sport in China as it is in the US. If not, a crash pad and a hunt for suitable boulders would be in order!

I spent a significant portion of a day researching the best software for my purpose, to keep track of various recipes and lineages of kombuchas. I tried mind mapping software but it wouldn’t allow for the insertion of tables, which make things much more visually apparent. So I checked on some brewing apps, the trouble here is I have a Chromebook and the highest reputed brewing apps aren’t compatible, those which are aren’t worth the trouble. I ended up with Lucidchart.com as it has a chrome extension and all the functionalities I was looking for. I can create a flow chart of several kombucha lineages, from one file, which include recipe and other information in table form. The final product can be exported into pdf, jpg, and other formats.

I plan to start my Chinese Veggie garden in two places, a raised bed in the on-campus housing community garden area and in the community garden located next to Evergreen’s Organic Farm. Here and in future posts I may refer to the garden near my housing as the raised bed and the garden by the Organic Farm as the community garden or CG. The raised bed is due to be weeded by Friday of week 3, we should have a drying patch that will allow for efficient weeding. This bed will receive the greens. The CG garden will be worked on Friday of week 3, here I’ll plant some greens and all of my beans and peas.

I spent the first week organizing an ILC/SOS which focused on reviewing and amending the Sustainability in Prisons Projects compost certification programs. This was an ongoing non-academic project which began Spring of 2017. After studying several composting methods in depth and cultivating the beginnings of a big-picture view, I pieced together a project aimed to asses the potential in combining bokashi and biochar. I had already learned a great deal about bokashi but knew very little about biochar, which is where Avi, a biochar expert in the makings, came in. I figured together with the rest of the biochar enthusiasts we could do some awesomely novel science. Fast forward to Sunday, the final day of Week 1. I’ve just worked 22 hours of hard manual labor in 2 days with no more than a few hours sleep and completed a 2 hour drive back home. Not long after dropping into bed I realized, I’m going to China in six months and I don’t really know much about it, besides they rock the tea game. So beginning Monday of Week 2 I set out to figuring out how I can prepare myself for my Chinese expedition.

Why China? A great question posed to me by Sarah Williams. To be honest, I had been planing to learn Japanese during the 2018-2019 school year and visit Japan to soak up some composting and moss cultivation knowledge. When Sarah offered this very structured and immersive opportunity to go to China, I was intrigued, though concerned about a few things. In particular, pollution levels, how much the Chinese know about the composting and agriculture that interests me, and I have some biases that tell me the Japanese have a more respectful culture. It turns out, I don’t know shit about the Chinese or Japanese people that I would be interacting with, the part of China that I’ll be visiting has very low pollution levels, and China’s overall pollution and overpopulation problems have lead to a wealth of research into composting and agriculture.

I haven’t yet figured out what all to expect, but for Week 2 I am planning to have a more solid language learning curriculum for myself, beds prepared and planted, and to have read further on pu’er and/or other teas.