Kombucha Journal

April 18 2018

Bottle and Brew

 

Two of the 5 cultures were started using the OlyCultures brand kombucha starter. Pellicles never seemed to develop fully and cultures produced an abundance of settled yeast. I’ll be botting this batch, discarding the pellicles, and discontinuing this lineage of kombucha.

 

Real-time Notes for the 2 OlyCulture Half gallon Jars

1. Bottled the two half gallon jars which have the rubber airlocks in flip top bottles
   1. Rinsed bottles with tap water
   2. Filled bottles with boiling tap water
      1. Set aside with lids closed
      2. Poured out hot water after ~ 15 minutes
   3. Began bottling
      1. Used funnel with cheesecloth to minimize yeast. This will have minimized pellicle as well, which may be good or bad.
      2. Filled to the brim, except the last one, which was short ~5-6oz
      3. Labeled bottles. The bottles with possibly more yeasty portions, last liquid in brew vessel, are the ones that are not quite as full. I’m curious how they are for flavor and how they settle in the stomach.

 

Real-time Notes for the 3 cultures from Vlad

• Rinsed 4 half gallon jars with boiling water, 3 for new brews and one for a scoby hotel.
• Three new brews
  • 11.5g Encore Pu-erh Tea 2005 1st Grade (Light, clean, refreshing notes and complex.)
  • 11.5g Encore Pu-erh Tea 2013 Long Life. (Dark, thick, rich, and complex)
  • 11g Co-op Oolong (Light, smooth, not so complex) and 6g Star Anise (has a subtle sweet flavor ; Illicium verum, native to southwest China)
• Weighed tea and added to jars,
• Poured 5.5 cups of just under boiling water into each jar
• Each brew was started 5 minutes apart, 4:05pm, 4:10pm, and 4:15pm, respectively.
• Let each Encore tea brew for 30 minutes and brewed the Oolong for 45 as I felt the star anise could use more time to release it’s flavor.
• Each brew received sugar after the brew time, when tea leaves were removed. I forgot to check on my sugar reserves so each brew received slightly ratios and kinds.
  • Encore Pu-erh Tea 2005 1st Grade
    • 68g dextrose
    • 44g sucrose
  • Encore Pu-erh Tea 2013 Long Life
    • 68g dextrose
    • 26g sucrose
    • 18g muscavado (little to non-refined sugarcane derived sugar)
  • Co-op Oolong
    • 68g dextrose
    • ~41g raw local honey
      • Microbes in raw honey are said to negatively affect the kombucha symbiosis (by a random internet person) but I added the honey while the tea water was still relatively hot. I’ll keep an eye on this culture but I feel confident it will be better than alright.
• The jars are now cooling to room temperature for ~4 hours
• About four hours later I began processing the cultures from the starter supplied by Vlad.
  • Generation 1 (G1) Oolong and star anise was used to inoculate generation two (G2), freshly brewed oolong, star anise and sugar
  • G1 Encore 2012 Sheng supreme loose-leaf puer 50/50 dextrose/sucrose was used to inoculate G2 Encore Pu-erh Tea 2005 1st Grade
  • G1 Encore 2012 Sheng supreme loose-leaf puer 60/40 dextrose/sucrose was used to inoculate G2 Encore Pu-erh Tea 2013 Long Life
• Transfer of G1 to G2
  • I inoculated the second generation of cultures started from Vlad’s SCOBY and pellicle using ~1 cup of liquid SCOBY tea.
  • Pellicles were washed in a bowl of artesian well water
  • Newly grown pellicles, the ones that fit the jars perfectly, were passed onto the second generation
  • Excess pellicles were placed into a SCOBY hotel with some of the two G1 Encore SCOBY liquid, some artesian well water, and acetic acid (white vinegar). Water and acetic acid were used so that more of the kombucha tea could be used for bottling as some bottles were not completely full.
• Freshy bottled OlyCulture and G1 Vlad cultures were stored in heated brew area with freshly inoculated G2 Vlad cultures. Initial air temperature was 27.78℃.
• Empty jars and equipment were then cleaned, dried, and stored.

 

Future plans

• Secondary fermentation (bottle fermentation) will be allowed for several days before refrigeration. The goal being complete/near complete consumption of the sugar. Brew area air temperature goal is about 30℃.
• Active G2 cultures will be sampled periodically and bottled in the next 2-4 weeks