Kombucha Progress

[Guest guest]

Well its been 2 months since i first started making kombucha and ive made 11 new

4 litter batches. I like to wait at least 1 month before i start drinking it.

Before then its too sweet. Now when i use white sugar it doesn't become sour and

it just stays sweet even after 6 weeks of fermentation. My body has a hard time

with sweets so i cant drink much of it without getting sick. I dont know what to

do with it so ill probably end up throwing it out. Now when i use natural sugar,

which is white sugar with some of the molasses added back into it, it becomes

semi-sour and semi-sweet, which is ok and i drink it in moderation. Now when i

use " red " sugar (what they call it in Thailand), which is pure cane sugar

without any of the molasses taken out of it, it becomes exceptionally sour. When

i drink that i feel a nice burn travel slowly down my alimentary canal just like

liquor. Red sugar is so potent in molasses that i need to use less than other

sugars. I use 80 g of natural sugar per litter while i use only about 60 g of

red sugar per litter. The kombucha batches of natural sugar have now become

inferior to the red sugar batches so im not sure what to do with them. I wonder

if i could make sauerkraut out of using the extra kombucha liquid. By the way,

the temperature of the room i make kombucha in constantly stays between 80-85

degrees F. So far i have no extra SCOBYs because i add whenever extra i have

into new batches which speeds up the fermenting process. If happen to do have

extras then i was considering using it as a tofu substitute (has anyone tried

this?). So far i have used only black tea. I will try using green tea and

oolong tea in making future batches. Now if i were ever to bottle my kombucha i

would try adding some raw honey which would probably kill the yeast and stop

fermentation which is what i think the guys at GT do. I do not like to use the

refrigerator because i dont have one and my neighbors has limited space.

Leif