[OK} Scoby thouights

[Guest guest]

What brilliantly wrote about 'The Scoby'....

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The SCOBY is a cellulose mat that the bacteria in the culture actually

construct for themselves. It's a product of bacterial activity, but not

itself a living entity. Each bacteria within the SCOBY is its own

entity. But as many people have said, the presence of a SCOBY does not

actually determine the quality of the brew, because the bacteria and yeast

live throughout the entire brew.

If you leave all the offspring SCOBYS in the brewing vessel, eventually the

older SCOBYs darken and get floppy. I think this is not an indication that

the brew is " weak " but that the bacteria always create a new SCOBY. The

older SCOBYs become the less-favored place to hang out. The SCOBY is not a

living entity, it is a house for the bacteria. They like to make a new

house if they are given the building blocks to do so.

I've seen that in a starter pot, in which mature KT is added periodically,

the SCOBYs stay firm and stable. I theorize this is because the yeast have

mostly gone dormant so there's no " mussing " of the SCOBYs. Also, there is

generally no input of strong nutrients, because only mature KT is put into

the jar. So the bacteria hang out very happily in their existing homes,

slowly adding to them.

>While manipulation of the environment can strengthen the

>culture, it can often take a few brewing cycles to get a viable

>culture to colonize again. To me this indicates a weak culture and is

>inferior to a strong culture that produces a colony on the first

>cycle. I have found this myself with some of the mistakes I have made,

>that it often takes a few cycles to get it right again.

You're right that it can take a few cycles to make a SCOBY again, but if

the brew is fermenting it is already colonized. It's not a weak culture in

the sense of any individual bacteria being weakened. Something may have

happened that killed off a portion of the bacteria. Or in the case of

adding raw honey, it's theorized that the enzymes (bacteria) in the honey

might compete with the KT bacteria-- in that case the KT bacteria that are

the ones fermenting the brew will be fewer in number until they start to

take up all the space again. But each individual KT bacteria is very strong.

I didn't understand the dangers of focusing on the SCOBY as the indicator

of culture health until this thread started. Because it's just not the

case. There can be outside factors that affect the SCOBY production (such

as room temperature) that do not mean that the finished brew is less good.

>It just seems to make sense that a weaker culture will produce an

>inferior tea. Not a bad tea, but one that would not be as good as one

>that is made with a healthier SCOBY.

That is the fallacy. The SCOBY is not alive or healthy/not healthy. The

SCOBY may look prettier or not prettier to our eyes, but it's beside the

point for the bacteria and yeast culture itself.

>I wouldn't toss any KT. I drink

>it all because its all good as I see it, and each batch has it's own

>uniqueness that I believe is beneficial, but some I believe is better

>than others.

I think a lot of us believe that, but I've drunk a lot of KT over the last

year (a quart a day), and while it can be anxiety producing not to receive

a SCOBY from a batch, the KT from the batch has been delicious and didn't

in any way give me a sense of being less than. For me, the ingredients

that go into a batch, brewing length, perfection at bottling time, time

allowed for aging in the bottle-- those are the factors that make a given

batch better than another.

If you realize that the SCOBY is a convenience for humans more than a

necessity (the brew will brew with just starter liquid), you can begin to

understand why the most experienced folks on the list strongly discourage

focusing on the SCOBY as the indicator of brew health.

I've only just begun to grasp it myself.

--V

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+------------------ Minstrel@... --------------------+

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