Brew kombucha at home: recipes, SCOBY care, second fermentation and flavouring. Your complete guide to homemade kombucha tea.
The hotel in SCOBY: your « culture bank » at home You start with a single SCOBY Kombucha. You get it – for example from Natural Probio – throw your first batch and discover the magic of the sweet tea, which becomes sparkling, sour and lively.Then something strange happens very quickly: a second disc appears on the […]
You taste your kombucha: either it takes your mouth away like a very strong vinegar, or it still tastes like sweet tea, almost unchanged. Between the two, there seems to be a ‘perfect point’… but it’s hard to reach when you’re just starting out. Don’t worry: kombucha that’s too acidic or too sweet is neither […]
You prepare your kombucha carefully, lift the fabric of the jar… and there’s a surprise: brown filaments, suspended particles, a thick deposit at the bottom. At first sight, this might seem dirty, even worrying. Many beginners immediately think: « my kombucha is contaminated », « it’s not clean », or « I’ll get sick if I drink this ». In fact, […]
The first thing you do when you lift the cloth from the jar is to put your nose to it, breathe in, and sometimes… gasp. Kombucha doesn’t smell like iced tea, and its aromas can be disconcerting, especially at first. A strong vinegary smell, a hint of yeast, a slightly ‘wild’ fragrance: where’s the borderline […]
When the jar remains hopelessly immobile You’ve followed the recipe, prepared the sweet tea, set up your SCOBY, covered the jar… and after several days, still nothing convincing.The kombucha tastes almost exactly the same as when you started, the surface seems frozen, there’s no marked acidity, and sometimes you can’t even see a new disc. […]
A question everyone ends up asking themselves At first, the drink appears as a slightly fizzy, tart tea, presented as an alternative to soft drinks. Sometimes you read the words « fermented beverage », you see a SCOBY in a jar of homemade kombucha, you understand that something alive is happening between the tea, the sugar and […]
Contaminated strain of kombucha: 4 signs and 2 outcomes SHORT ANSWER A contaminated strain shows one thing: a dry, fuzzy patch on the surface, blue, green or black. In that case discard the liquid and the SCOBY together, wash the jar and start again. Everything else, including brown strings, holes, dark staining, a sinking disc […]
A drink that sounds new… but isn’t If you come across kombucha in an organic aisle, on a coffee card or on social networks, you may have the impression that it’s a ‘new’ trendy drink. The label is pretty, the flavours are modern, and the promises about microbiota and digestion speak to today’s consumer. Yet […]
A strange word for a very concrete reality When you first discover kombucha, there’s always a moment when you come across this strange word: SCOBY. Sometimes it’s pronounced ‘scobi’, sometimes ‘skobi’, and you’ll see it written on recipe cards, on specialist websites or on bags of kombucha cultures. But until you see a SCOBY for […]
A divisive issue: fridge or no fridge? When you start making homemade kombucha, one of your first concerns is:what do you do with your SCOBY when you’re not brewing? As you read blogs and forums, you come across two opposing camps: On the one hand, there are those who say:« Put your SCOBY in the fridge, […]
When you start making kombucha, you quickly become attached to your SCOBY. You watch him, you worry, you wonder if he’s all right… and sooner or later a question comes up: is he still alive or has he ‘died’ for good? This concern is normal. SCOBY is not a simple ingredient, it’s a living culture […]
People are talking about it in cafés, in organic shops, on social networks… Kombucha is everywhere. But behind the pretty bottles and marketing promises, one question keeps coming up: what are the real benefits of kombucha? Is it just a fad, or does it really deserve a place in your daily life? If you’ve been […]
A leaky SCOBY: problem or normal behaviour? You start a new batch of kombucha.You carefully place your SCOBY on the surface of the sweet tea. It floats for a moment, then… gloups. It sinks to the bottom of the jar or lies askew, like a pancake that hasn’t decided to stay on top. At that […]
We read everywhere that kombucha is « good for digestion ». On the internet, on organic shelves and in trendy cafés, it’s being touted as the miracle drink for sensitive stomachs. But is it really true? Is it just a marketing ploy, or are there real reasons to believe that kombucha can support digestion on a daily […]
You open your bottle of homemade kombucha, expecting the typical ‘spritz’ of fizzy drinks… and nothing. No foam, no bubbles, almost no life in the glass. The taste is good, but the texture disappoints you: you dreamt of a lively, fizzy kombucha, but what you get is an almost flat drink. It’s one of the […]
A beverage that intrigues… and is making a comeback everywhere For some years now, the word ‘kombucha’ has been appearing on labels, in cafés and on social networks. It is presented as a ‘living’, fizzy drink, sometimes as a healthier alternative to soft drinks. But behind this trendy image lies an ancient, highly codified fermenting […]
More than just a wafer: a complete ecosystem When you first discover SCOBY, you see a beige, gelatinous disc that looks a little strange. It floats on the surface of the kombucha, thickening as it ferments and sometimes splitting into two. From the outside, it looks like a simple ‘skin’ formed by the tea, something […]
Seeing « hair » on your kombucha: a beginner brewer’s big scare Everything seemed to be going well.You had prepared your sweet tea, added your SCOBY, covered the jar, chosen a quiet corner… Then, when you came to have a look a few days later, you saw appearing on the surface of the liquid : a downy, […]
Two gelatinous discs that look the same from a distance… but not up close When you start to take an interest in fermentation, you soon come across two curiosities that bear a striking resemblance to each other. On the one hand, there’s the SCOBY of kombucha, the creamy, slightly gelatinous disc that transforms sweet tea […]
Homemade or industrial kombucha: 9 honest differences SHORT ANSWER Industrial kombucha is consistent, needs no work, and is often pasteurised, which removes the live cultures. Homemade kombucha lets you set the fermentation time, and therefore the sugar between 1 and 5 g per 100 ml and the acidity, and it always contains live cultures. A […]
Sick kombucha: 7 symptoms and which one actually matters SHORT ANSWER A sick kombucha is rarer than the internet suggests. Only one sign means the batch is lost: a dry, fuzzy patch on the surface, blue, green or black. Brown strings, bumps, holes, a sinking SCOBY, a thin new layer and a sour smell are […]
