Last year we wrote a beginners guide to homemade kombucha, this included an article that broke down what the heck this fizzy, funky, fresh, fermented drink is in the first place, as well as a master brew guide to get you started on your first batch of booch! This article+recipe combo was a great jumping-off point for anyone interested in starting their first batch, but since then, we’ve gotten tons of stories and recommendations from our community, and learned a whole lot ourselves about some amazing tips and tricks to bring your booch to the next level and fine tune your brewing skills! So, without any further ado, we present Fizzy, Funky, Fresh: The Sequel.

This article is a compilation of recommendations and stories from our community, and lessons learned by us and them along our kombucha-making journey’s, loosely grouped into relevant these categories: Fermentation, SCOBY care, Flavoring, Storage, Waste, and Brewing.

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Fermentation Tips

Carbonation builds pressure in your closed secondary fermentation vessel (typically a bottle of some sort). If you let this process go on for too long, or if you forget to chill your bottle before opening it, it may fizz up and shoot out! Chilling the bottle locks gaseous carbon dioxide into the kombucha liquid which helps with this issue (and makes your kombucha bubblier!), but knowing how long is “too long” to ferment will take some experimentation! I usually go for around 5-8 days for the secondary fermentation.
From the community: “Oh my god, the first time I brewed kombucha, I bottled it and left it for second fermentation but didn't realize HOW much carbonation there would be… I opened the first bottle and kombucha ERUPTED onto my ceiling and walls so much so that we had to repaint, so please be aware to open your brewed booch SLOWLY.”

I often include small particles of the scoby in my secondary vessel and wait for a small scoby mass to grow at the top of the liquid in the bottle, at that point, the bottle is almost certainly carbonated and ready to consume! Just strain out the scoby particles before serving!

80ºF is the real sweet spot for fermentation, you’ll want it to be near that temperature as often as possible. To try and regulate this, you can use germination mats or other heated pads, find naturally warm spots in your kitchen, or keep it near appliances that stay on and generate their own heat. We recommend keeping it away from air vents however, these may introduce contaminants into the kombucha and the SCOBY!

If your kitchen is warm (above 75-80ºF), “burping” your bottles -- opening them just slightly for just a moment -- may be necessary. This is to reduce excess carbonation from accumulating and prevent a literal explosion.

The sugar you feed your scoby with (when you’re making the sweet tea) has a huge impact! I recommend simple organic cane sugar when possible, my trials with brown sugar or coconut sugar haven’t yielded the best results! Leave comments if you have advice or different experiences!

Make sure you’re using a jar that isn’t much taller than it is wide (maybe 2:1, max), the scoby needs ample surface area to process the sugar in the tea and if it’s too skinny it will take a very long time.

SCOBYs “like” black teas partially because of the tannins in the tea! That said, it’s not the only option! You can go down many different routes, but we highly recommend doing a bit of a hybrid with black tea in the mix if you do!

Scoby Care

When your SCOBY gets too thick — greater than 1-1.5 inches — you should consider “splitting” it. This splitting is necessary because when the SCOBY gets too thick, the quality of the kombucha may begin to decline, the fermentation may happen far too rapidly, and you’ll simply have more space for the actual kombucha in your vessel!
How to split: The new SCOBY will be on top, with the “mother” (older portion) below. You can gently peel it in half (horizontally, grabbing two chunks of layers in each washed hand), or cut it with a very sharp knife if need be — just be careful and try not to cut an individual layer in half. If the mother is still healthy you can:

Start a new batch with it, and take the opportunity to use a new type of tea
Share it with a friend
Keep it dormant in the fridge for a rainy day! (see below)

You can keep SCOBYs dormant without killing them by putting them in a slightly sugary solution and placing them in the refrigerator in a closed container.

Make sure your hands are clean when handling the SCOBY, and try to reduce any contaminants from entering the vessel! These introductions of contaminants can damage or even compromise your scoby!

If your SCOBY sinks with the introduction of new brewing liquid (sweet tea) at the beginning of a new batch, don't worry, it's not dead (probably)! This is totally normal and simply the result of a higher density of the liquid early in the fermentation process.

Flavoring

Process

From the community: “I mostly only flavor my booch with dried fruit, but have recently been trying fruit juices, which are fine but I havent found them to be any better.”

The caveat here is that these solid flavorings can make fermentation take longer and yield much less carbonation. This is due to a reduced amount of surface area for the kombucha to interact with and less dissolvable sugar to consume. We recommend supplementing dried fruits with simple syrup or added sugars (juices, even) to help balance this out, you can also chop up your dried fruits (but our community member notes that leaving them whole can offer a cool effect as they rehydrate and assume their original shape!)

If you decide to use dried fruit, candied dried fruit works best—likely because of the added dissolvable sugars on the outside.

Flavors

From the community: “okay i think my favorite flavor is still apple pie: dried apples + cinnamon, with maybe a little bit of lemon juice and candied ginger.”
From the community: “I also like candied ginger + lime juice as a flavor”
From the community: “fav flavor for ppl who like tart/sour things: raspberry and lime juice”
From the community: “fav flavor: cherry juice, fresh watermelon, kiwi and lime juice”
From the community: “fresh cherry juice”
From the community: “best batch I ever made was nectarine”
From the community: “green spruce tips, it gives a similar piney flavor that you get from the hops in an IPA”
From the community: “strawberry lemonade slaps!”
From the community: “ginger all day every day!”
From the community: “apple juice is the best for secondary fermentation!!”
Blueberry + fresh mint leaves
Guava juice
Passionfruit juice
Pineapple juice
Pomegranate juice
Supplement juices with whole spices like cardamom, cinnamon, and anise, whole roots like ginger and turmeric, or whole herbs like mint and cilantro!

Storage

Keep your primary and secondary fermentation vessels out of direct sunlight! The UV radiation can harm the active bacteria and yeast, and the direct exposure can cause increases in temperature that may harm the fermentation process or the SCOBY as a whole.
Reusing commercial kombucha bottles is an awesome way to increase capacity and reduce waste, but truth be told, they don't ferment as well as swing top bottles (likely due to leaks from less secure tops).

Waste

From the community: “my fun tip that I recently learned is that if you leave your booch too long and it gets vinegar-y, don't dump it! There are plenty of other uses for it, just like other vinegar”
We recommend experimenting with this! The applicability of this over-fermented kombucha will depend on how “vinegar-y” it has become, but it can include things like vinaigrettes, quick-pickles, and other sauces/condiments!

Brewing

The biggest bummer of making the sweet tea for new batches is that you have to wait for it to cool down...for a while. To cut this time, brew your tea with half of the required water, then supplement the final sweet tea with ice at the very end to cool it down! Just make sure it doesn't get too cool, if it falls below 75ºF you may want to pop the tea back on the stove for a minute or so to raise the temp to 75-85ºF.

In the initial master brewing guide, I referenced using an autosiphone to transfer liquid from your primary fermentation vessel to other vessels. I have since stopped doing so. It made a big mess, was difficult to clean, and didn't really save much time if any at all. Now I simply transfer my SCOBY into a bowl with a bit of starter tea and cover it with a clean towel while I pour directly from the primary vessel into pouring bowls/cups.

Do you have any tips, tricks, cheat codes, words of caution, interesting stories, new flavors, or anything else you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments or email us at groundedgrub@gmail.com!

Fizzy Funky Fresh: The Sequel