Do the mamas rebuild themselves?

[Guest guest]

Hi.

First I'd like to say thank you for all the KT experiences shared here on this

list.

I was given a scoby a few months ago and have been enjoying KT tremendously. I

currently have three fermenting vessels -- a 2 gallon canister, a 1-gallon

cylinderical glass salad bowl (great Good Will find), and a 1-gallon punch bowl

(another Good Will find, and produces scoby's with scalloped edges).

I noticed last time I bottled my KT, the original mama scoby looked thin in the

middle. The perimeter is still as thick as it was when I first received it, but

the center is thinning. It's in a 2-gallon canister with two similarly thick

babies. I don't know if I increased the amount of KT I was trying to ferment

too quickly, from 3 quarts to 7 qts in 4 or 5 fermenting cycles of 8 days.

Regardless of how it happened, is there any way for that original scoby to

thicken its middle back up? does it need to be the only scoby with only 3 qts.

again and left alone for a long period of time? If it were any other scoby, it

wouldn't matter, but it's my original one from my friend, and I'm a little

attached to it.

A second question: My original scoby is more of a tan color, and the newer

scobys are very white -- is this due to a difference in yeast vs. bacteria

dominance or temperature or from the teas used? Originally, I used 4 green tea

and 1 black tea per 3 qts., and gradually went to 100% green tea.

Thanks!

--DeLynn

[Guest guest]

>I noticed last time I bottled my KT, the original mama scoby looked thin

>in the middle. The perimeter is still as thick as it was when I first

>received it, but the center is thinning. It's in a 2-gallon canister with

>two similarly thick babies. I don't know if I increased the amount of KT

>I was trying to ferment too quickly, from 3 quarts to 7 qts in 4 or 5

>fermenting cycles of 8 days.

>

>Regardless of how it happened, is there any way for that original scoby to

>thicken its middle back up? does it need to be the only scoby with only 3

>qts. again and left alone for a long period of time? If it were any other

>scoby, it wouldn't matter, but it's my original one from my friend, and

>I'm a little attached to it.

SCOBYs do eventually go darker brown and floppy, by that time most of us

have accumulated many more SCOBYs and it's time to retire the oldest

one. In another post just now I described various uses for SCOBYs-- do

make sure you have a backup nursery jar. Your original SCOBY will

eventually need to be retired, that's just the way it is. The SCOBY itself,

the solid material, is simply the cellulose house the bacteria build for

itself (cellulose is what plants are built of-- lettuce is basically

cellulose and water). The bacteria themselves live on from batch to batch,

even though some of them move on to other uses if we retire a SCOBY.

Thinning areas or centers are actually very normal in brewing. It's

unclear why, but sometimes this happens. In my brewing, sometimes SCOBYs

will recover (just leave them alone and use all the material present from

batch to batch), but other times it is a prelude to the SCOBY

disintegrating, which is the next stage after it goes browner and floppy

(rather than firm). So, eventually your original SCOBY will disintegrate,

and in doing so tends to leave more cloudiness in the brew. So, I remove

the SCOBYs from my SCOBY stack when they get floppy rather than waiting

until they disintegrate.

Point being: It's natural to be attached to one's original SCOBY, but

every SCOBY eventually disintegrates. While it holds colonies of the

bacteria and yeasts that compose the KT culture, the cellulose biomat

itself, the solid SCOBY, is not itself alive. The bacteria are essentially

immortal because they just endlessly split, so you'll always have your

original culture/SCOBY with you in each successive batch. Even if a batch

went moldy and you had to throw it out, as long as you have a nursery jar

with backup SCOBYs in it you'll always have your original culture (which no

doubt changes over time in response to environment and the personal needs

of the humans). If total disaster befell your brews and you lost

everything, you could still get another SCOBY from your original friend and

you'd still have the same culture to start with.

>A second question: My original scoby is more of a tan color, and the

>newer scobys are very white -- is this due to a difference in yeast vs.

>bacteria dominance or temperature or from the teas used? Originally, I

>used 4 green tea and 1 black tea per 3 qts., and gradually went to 100%

>green tea.

Your original SCOBY sounds like it was a little older when you first got

it. New SCOBY are generally white, except if you use dark-colored

sweetener such as barley malt syrup. Over time they get more tan. I think

it's because they are soaking up coloring from the tea, but also it's an

aging sign. So, it's totally normal to have coloring differences, don't

worry. no worries.

--V

~~~ There is no way to peace; peace is the way ~~~~

--A.J. Muste