Home Brew Kombucha – Second fermentation

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Now we get into the second fermentation part of how to home brew kombucha. You may want to read the first fermentation part.

 

Once kombucha tea smells or tastes a bit more vinegary than sweet you can start. How do you know? It’s really more of a trial and error thing. As with most brewing and fermenting, cleanliness is key here in order to not “contaminate” the original Kombucha tea or SCOBY. So do keep the Kombucha jar covered with the cloth and never add anything other than the tea/sugar mixture to it.

 

Berries in cups for Kombucha brewing
I’ve been liking the chopped up berries lately. They are easy to find and taste great!
What you’ll need to make this a delish final product is “flavoring” for your tea. This comes in several forms. You can buy juices from the store, juice your own or just add chopped up ingredients. I prefer the latter. So get some fruit or other things and experiment! I’ll do a recipes post later, but for now… Start easy, maybe with apple, ginger, mint, berries, etc…

Second Fermentation – The Process:

 

Make a new batch of tea so you can refill the “Mother” kombucha jar. Let cool to room temperature and…

 

funnel, knife and ladle for Kombucha brewing
Get yer tools out and start chopping

Cut up, juice, or gather the bottled juices you’ll be using and set aside. You could also use dry ingredients, but will likely have to add more than you think. Never be afraid to play with the quantities, worst that can happen is one bottle tastes bad. I just dumped a goji berry bottle, yesterday. Once everything is chopped add it to the bottles. How much is up to you. I don’t go over 1/6, but mileage may vary.

 

 

Bottles and airlocks for brewing Kombucha

I recommend the type of bottles that can be resealed. You can get them from your local brewing store, some beer brands, and even TraderJoes! Once you close these, they’ll start to fizz/pressurize. I used to just “burp” the bottles by opening them once in a while. I now highly recommend getting airlocks. Also available from local brew store or online. These create an air lock (who would’ve guessed) that allows air/pressure out but no air/bugs in. Use the airlocks! You’ll thank me later :)

 

 

Kombucha SCOBY with tea in jar

Now ladle the kombucha tea from the jar and funnel into the bottles. Filling them up nearly to the top. Try to leave some starter tea in the jar for the next batch. Cap or add airlocks and, again, let this sit for about one week in a shady place at room temperature. It will, hopefully, be a delicious brew. Be wary if you let it sit for to long and capped it instead of using an airlock, it might get to fizzy and “explode” on you when you first open it.

 

Bottled Kombucha with airlock

Have fun, enjoy and let me know how it turns out. I now I will…

2 comments

  1. Thanks for sharing! Will the second brew still be frizzy even using the airlock? I’m considering using airlock but want to keep the produce frizzy. Also, I just did mine second fermentation and one bottle exploded while the other two shot out half of the contents upon releasing. This happened on the 5th day only and the content still very sweet. 😳

    1. Hi Rina,

      Sorry for the late reply here! The should still be nice and fizzy even when using an airlock. You can always cap it for the last day. I find that the pressure will still build in the refrigerator. All of this depends on the sweetness and temperature. For instance, pineapple will almost always be very fizzy and can pop a bottle. One trick I use when opening very pressurised/fizzy bottles is put them in a large bowl. When opening the bottle, I will have another bowl face down on top of it. This will catch all of the fizzy fountain of goodness into the big bowl. You can then put it back into the bottle and fridge.

      Hope that helps and that your booch is happy!

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