Re: Different fruits and brew results

October 25, 2010

Hi Pippa and EveryOne,

Interesting story well worth reading!

Suggest that you open all of your bottles once a day to prevent explosions,

those bottles that end up with a lot of yeast and sugar in them can develop

carbonation very quickly, overnight.

Doubt that KT would cause a healing crisis since you have been drinking it for

awhile now. In any case, cutting back on the amount and adding lots of plain

water to your day can't do any harm.

Feel better and better!

Peace, Love and Harmony,

Bev

>

> Maybe somewhat OT? Hard to say, in my brain.

>

> Anyway, I've been flavoring my most recent brews. I got some berries at the

very end of the season, just before they went moldy, pureed them, and froze them

in ice-cube trays. So now I just pop a " berry-cube " into each bottle in the

morning and then wait and (as usual) pour my brew and start the next batch in

the afternoon/evening when they've had time to thaw. And the different results

at the end of a week of secondary ferment have been most amusing.

>

> The blueberry brew, sadly, is not my favorite. I adore blueberries, but the

flavor does not translate well to kombucha. It's not bad, just not particularly

nice. (ironically, that was the flavor I happened to have on me at a gathering

recently and my friends all tried it and adored it - but it was many of their

first taste of home-brewed instead of store-bought kombucha, also) Not much

activity in secondary ferment, either.

>

> The cherry develops a nicer flavor, but with a similar activity in secondary

ferment - some fizz but not much, moderate mini-scoby development.

>

> But the raspberry... the raspberry is insane! (in a good way, lol) I did the

flavors last week and the raspberry had significantly more fizz AND

significantly more scoby production - starting to wonder if I should toss some

in the primary ferment to get better scoby mats, lol. But this week's? I don't

have pressure-release bottles, so I pop the tops every few days to release the

pressure during secondary ferment. Today was the final pop and then into the

fridge with them to be this week's drinks. Two of the bottles were raspberry.

One had way more fizz than the others, but still popped normally. The other one

turned into a GEYSER. And no, I did not shake it up. It had developed enough

pressure in just 2 days (since I last popped them) that it had actually managed

to leak around the lid onto the counter top. And when it geysered, I closed the

lid again and waited for it to die down, as I usually do - it took about 5

rounds of popping

> and closing before it settled.

>

> Apparently my brew REALLY LIKES raspberries.

>

> This week I chopped up some ginger root and tossed that into two of the

bottles, we'll see how that goes. I don't have a way to puree that at home, but

I chopped the bits up small, and it was oozing juice, it's a good fresh one, so

I have high hopes. I love ginger - and I think I'm getting sick again, so the

extra immune boosting will help.

>

> Anyway, after the recent discussion of scoby mats, I am trying two new things

this week to see if I can finally get a solid scoby to build instead of these

thin little " jellyfish " biofilms. I keep seeing that yeast=fizz=disturbs the

mat when it's brewing - and that much of the yeast hangs out at the bottom of

the jar, so I discarded the very last dregs and washed the jars out this week.

And since Margret mentioned that green and white teas can grow stronger scobies,

I have mixed up my tea a bit this week. I usually do 5 bags in my gallon brew,

but I'm doing 6 this week - 2 black, 2 green (with jasmine) and 2 white (with

tangerine). I know citrus is usually bad, but I've used this white tea before

with good results, so I'm not worried about it. It's not the oil, so maybe

that's the difference, who knows. (the jasmine green and the tangerine white

together make a lovely, crisp, cooling brew for summer - didn't even flavor that

one in secondary

> ferment, it was so tasty)

>

> Speaking of being sick (and I'm sorry this is so long) - I had " the plague "

recently, fevers forming and breaking every day for two and a half weeks. Been

over that for about 2 weeks now - and I'm feeling like I'm getting sick again.

While I had " the plague " , I had almost no kombucha to drink (my old scobies got

moldy, my new brew was only yielding about 3 bottles a week, it was just bad

timing), but I'm finally up to 6 bottles a week, so I have some basically every

day. And it's after a week of daily KT to drink that I'm getting sick - which

makes no sense to me. But I know that other detox regimens (such as the master

cleanse, which I have done a few times) warn that you can develop cold-like

symptoms at the start if the amount of detoxing you are doing starts to

overwhelm your system, so I'm wondering if KT can possibly cause that too -

maybe that's all it is. Since I only have 6 bottles (saving some brew to give a

friend to start working

> with), I'm not having any today, just some lovely lemon-ginger-cinnamon-honey

tea I make when I'm sick (a powerful immune booster - and also very tasty and

comforting), and hoping that symptoms will ease off as I continue drinking KT

next week and my body finishes whatever " crisis " it is going through. Thoughts

on this?

>

> Pippa

> aka " the novelist " , lol

> kudos to anyone who actually read the entire thing, I know I'm prone to

rambling

>

October 25, 2010

lovely tasty experiments, congratulation!

Since I also like to experiment with flavors in secondary fermentations, I can

share that raspberry is probably one of my all time favorites, will never tire

of the flavor.

Organic strawberries are producing an equally awesome taste, you may want to try

it! If you like mint, try some fresh or dried mint, either just mint or mint

with some ginger, yummy!

Do