Kombucha Diaries Continued...

Wednesday July 25, 2012

I am discovering that a gallon of boiling hot tea takes a long time to cool.  I started my new batch of tea on Tuesday morning.  By Tuesday night it was still hotter than room temp.  So I left it overnight first thing in the morning I had my bottles ready, and my tea was cool.  I scrubbed everything with hot soapy water, and decided to rinse my bottles with vinegar just to make sure.  I opened up my jar that had been sitting on the counter for a week.  It was like Christmas!  I gently poured out some of the Kombucha through a cheese cloth into a pitcher.  Bottled that and repeated until the jar was a little less than half empty.  When bottling my friend told me, fill it all the way to the top, no air space.  She also said put the bottles in a pan and put a sock over them because sometimes they explode... wow!  
Here is the exciting part.  At about half way, I decided to get the mother out and start my next batch, as you have to add some of the liquid from the first batch.  I washed my hands one more time just to make sure, and grabbed it out.  I was told that while the Kombucha is fermenting it will grow a new mother, OK, I thought this sounds super weird, but ok...Well, it did!  There were two nice little gelatinous circles floating on the tea.  I gently separated them, and put the new one in a dish with some liquid to share.

I bottled the rest of my tea, and viola!  First batch will be ready in one week.  It has to sit on the counter in the bottles for a week, then you pop it in the refrigerator.  It smells and looks like it is supposed to so that is good.

Wednesday evening July 25, 2012

I went to check out my bottles, and noticed liquid in the bottom of the pan.  I scanned them all and found one that was low!  I picked it up and EXPLOSION!  Now I see why my friend said to put a sock on each bottle. (which I didn't do)  It was really just a little break, but I did loose one bottle, oh well....

To be continued...