Scoby Junkie

May 28, 2008

I have become a scoby junkie, I think. I have been saving all extra

scobies, big, small, whatever, to a jar with lots of KT in it.

While I was trying to figure out the white " thingies " on top of my

third KT fermented jar (reference Uh Oh post), I went to Kombucha, the

actually just made me a whole lot less secure, realizing all the

things that can go wrong that I didn't realize before.

I didn't find answers to my " white stuff " that I mentioned in my

previous post (though I didn't see any fuzz anywhere), but I found

this information under Starter Pot:

***...Only keep one or two spare cultures in the pot and replace them

with the newest cultures which aren't currently committed to a

ferment. This helps slow down the accumulation of dead debris in the

pot. When you remove the older cultures, squeeze out as much of the

juice as possible to take advantage of the acid content and free some

of the new cells to further boost the bacteria population.***

***Filter the contents of the starter pot every 4 to 6 weeks to insure

dead cells don't accumulate and cause detrimental side effects. When

dead cells begin to stack up, the yeast will cannibalize them which

can result in some pretty nasty tastes and smells...***

Well, this scared me to death because I sure haven't been doing any of

this! I have lots of floating things in there, which I was thinking

was a good thing, along with its getting more vinegary for future

batches, ensuring no mold. But now I am wondering if what I have is

dead debris, dead cells stacking up, causing detrimental effects (not

to mention cannibalizing them)!

So now I guess I will have to clean the house jar and toss out a

lot...or maybe even all if people think I have harmed them. Also,

many of my scobies have " stuff " on them, which I figured was yeasts,

and which I thought was beneficial. Now I am questioning everything,

wondering if I have created problems and maybe the scobies have had

too much yeast? Providing it is normal for it to be there, should I

be cleaning it off before starting new batches?

If I were to put most (or all) of my old scobies in my compost bin,

should I cut them up first or put them in a blender, or will something

that large decompose in time?

I sure hope someone can help me!

Thank you,

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