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Sarah Jean Melito Blog

How to Make Kombucha at Home!

Our Home

4 May

Let’s learn how to make kombucha together. Kombucha is a fermented tea that is absolutely delicious, healthy for your gut and full of probiotics. Save money making kombucha at home with this simple tutorial!

What is Kombucha?

Kombucha is a yummy, tangy fermented drink that has been growing more popular over the years! We have been buying kombucha on every grocery trip and I was wondering if I could start to make my own at home. Turns out, it’s really easy and you can do it for a fraction of the price! It’s immune boosting, great for your gut, and detoxes your body. Kombucha also can be an aid to digestion. As it sits over time, the tea, sugar, and SCOBY work together to ferment! Fermentation is an anaerobic process in which microorganisms like yeast and bacteria break down food components (e.g. sugars such as glucose) into other products (e.g. organic acids, gases or alcohol). Other fermented products you might be familiar with are yogurt, kefir, sourdough bread, and sauerkraut.

You’re probably wondering what a SCOBY is too. It’s the slimy, mushroom-like cellulose disc that is formed by the bacteria during fermentation. SCOBY stands for symbiotic culture of yeast and bacteria. While you can definitely try to make your own and use store-bought kombucha for your starter liquid, I suggest checking out Yeabucha or Cultures For Health to get started. It’ll pay for itself within 2-3 weeks of home brewing!

Photo of a SCOBY from Yeabucha

There are so many combinations you can try. I’ve made strawberry pineapple, strawberry, watermelon, tropical blends, and then a triple berry. I usually use frozen fruit, because you’ll get more bang for your buck! Some other combos you could try are mango cilantro, fruit punch (apple, strawberry, blueberries and orange), apple cinnamon, lemon lavender & honey, peach, watermelon, blueberry mint, and the list goes on and on! Now let’s get to talking about the steps to make kombucha. For your first brew, you’ll need the SCOBY and starter liquid and then you just reuse that same SCOBY and your own starter liquid each time!

  1. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Then add about 3tbsp of organic loose leaf tea to a reusable tea bag or ball. I buy this tea which is ethically sourced and regeneratively grown. Drop the tea into the water and remove from heat, and let it steep for 6 minutes. Remove tea bag.
  2. Stir 1 cup of organic cane sugar into the tea. (I know you’re thinking this is a lot of sugar, but after the fermentation process it does not equal out to 1 cup of sugar) Once dissolved, pour the tea into a a one gallon jar, which will be your brew jar, and add 8 cups of water. Mix the tea and check temperature; you want it to be between 68-84 degrees. You can add ice if you need to.
  3. Add the 2 cups of starter liquid to the brew jar and place the SCOBY on top. Cover jar with a cotton cloth and elastic. I then place my jar on the counter, out of direct sunlight and leave it undisturbed for 7-10 days.

After 7-10 days, the next step is to flavor and bottle the brew. BEFORE you go to bottle your brew, take out your SCOBYs (with more and more fermenting, you’ll have more SCOBYs to gift to family and friends!) and 2 cups of starter liquid. It’s best to start a new batch while you’re bottling your brew that’s ready to bottle.

  1. Gather some fresh or frozen fruits. There are so many combos, get creative with it! Chop the fruits small and drop them into glass bottles. I’ve used mason jars, thrifted Grolsch glass bottles, flip-top bottles, and old kombucha jars! The mason jars don’t produce much of a fizzy-drink, but I actually like my kombucha less-fizzy and so do my kiddos.
  2. Stir your brewed kombucha, then use a funnel to pour it into each bottle. Seal tighty and store in a pantry or cabinet for 2-4 days. The flavor will develop each day until it’s put into the fridge.
  3. After the 2-4 days it’s time to drink! You can strain off the fruit, but we prefer to eat it (hello more probiotics) or you can compost it, give it to your chickens or other animals. The refrigerated kombucha is good for up to 12 months.

There are so many benefits of drinking kombucha and other fermented goodies. Trust me, your gut and body will thank you! When you make them at home versus buying from the store, you’re saving money and they are filled with good bacteria and can help repopulate your gut with the good stuff! It’ll help your body significantly more than if it’s been sitting on a shelf at grocery store for weeks. It’s also a great alternative to giving your kids juice. There is a bit of alcohol in finished kombucha, but trust me, not enough to get you buzzed or anything. A couple of other ways to use kombucha tea are for dressings and condiments, meat marinade, frozen treats, soaking grains, cocktails, and hair care! So if you find yourself with an abundance of extra kombucha, don’t toss it.

I hope this tutorial was easy enough for you all to understand, but please leave me any questions or comments below! I’d be happy to answer them 🙂

Much love guys,

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Dreaming up this garden took a lot of time, patien Dreaming up this garden took a lot of time, patience and hard work… but who says you can’t garden in the burbs?! Gardening looks different for everyone 🌿🥒🌻 This is why it’s so special. You can grow wherever you are, it just takes a little extra planning! 

#homesteadher #surburbanhomestead #backyardhomestead #backyardhomesteading #wethehomesteaders #homemakers #happyhomesteading #homesteadlife #homesteader #wannabehomesteader #gardeningideas #gardenideas #raisedbedgarden #raisedbedgardening
A few things that make my heart happy these days: A few things that make my heart happy these days: 

Growing my very own sunflowers from seed 
Trying new recipes like this dill & fennel cheddar sourdough loaf 🤤🥖🌻 
Homeschooling my loves 

If 20 year old me could see me now, almost 30 and realizing.. these are the days ☀️
Gardening has brought such a peace to my life that Gardening has brought such a peace to my life that I never knew I needed. Growing up, I spent hours in my grandmother’s garden, eating carrots right from the ground and being fascinated with each bite. I started 4 years ago planting in one big raised bed, and every year I learn more. It’s such a challenge to garden, but there’s something about it that still fascinates me to this day.  It truly brings your family together to make an effort to connect with your food and nature. 

Thankful for Ant who helps without ever complaining to make this the beautiful garden I envisioned. I love watching our children eat a whole pound of strawberries or wipe out an entire trellis of snap peas without either making it into the house first. Planting seeds and weeding with the girls, teaching them every step of the way. Gardening has taught me to slow down a little more. 

Hoping to have a little farm stand to sell our veggies, eggs, kombucha, sourdough and more homemade goods sometime in the summer. ☀️🌻
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If only sourdough really only took 60 seconds 😂 If only sourdough really only took 60 seconds 😂😂 I’ve been making sourdough for over 2 years now and it’s still a learning process! It’s such a gift to be able to pass this knowledge down to my children and I love that I can make this beautiful bread to nourish my family. Do you bake sourdough?! What’s holding you back?! #sourdough #sourdoughbread  #sourdoughbaking #sourdoughscoring #homesteadmama  #homesteading #homesteadlife #homemakerlife #homemaker
The pictures and videos my sister and doula took d The pictures and videos my sister and doula took during the birth of DJ mean more to me than any fancy ones ever would. I’m forever grateful to have them to look back on. I could rewatch this 1000 times and it still seems surreal. 
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