Quite awhile back I wrote of my adventures with a quickly multiplying mushroom. We cut back now to one batch every 10 days or so which is much more manageable – we even have a few jars to pass on to our BIL who swears that it helps him power through his bike rides.
I thought I would post a few helpful hints on successfully fermenting your own with a few pic’s on the process…
First – cleanliness is a must. You want to make sure you wash your hands (remove rings) and clean all work surfaces so that you do not contaminate your brew with who knows what.
Of course you will need a kombucha mushroom and a bit of kombucha tea as a starter. If you know of anyone who ferments their own tea you can probably ask them for a ‘baby’ (most will be more than happy to pass one along) or you can order them online.
Equipment you will need:
a 3 quart clear glass bowl
a fine woven towel to cover the bowl (flour sack towels work great)
masking tape and a few rubber bands
Now, make a batch of tea – boil 3 quarts of water. When it comes to a boil, add 1 cup of granulated sugar – plain old sugar. Bring back to a boil and put in 4 tea bags – you can use any unflavored black or green tea. I use 2 spoons each of organic green and black tea in a giant tea ball. Bring back to a boil. Cover the pot and turn off the heat. Let the tea steep for about 20 minutes, remove the tea bags (or tea ball.)
Let the tea cool to room temp. I find this usually takes all day so I make the tea in the morning and do the next part in the evening.
Pour the un-fermented tea into the bowl and lay the mushroom light side up:
Pour about 2 cups of fermented tea on top of the mushroom. This is the starter to make sure things get fermenting along.
Put masking tape on the bowl to keep the towel from dipping in:
Make a big round rubber band by connecting a few together. I use a twist tie to connect them into a big circle:
Using a flour sack towel, cover the bowl and fasten the rubber bands around the rim:
It’s important to use a tightly woven towel (NOT cheese cloth) to keep fruit flies from entering.
Now just set the bowl in a safe out of the way place for 7-12 days to ferment away. With the cool winter weather, it’s been taking about 10 days for our batches to brew to our desired puckeriness. You can scoop out a bit with a clean shot glass for a taste after about 7 days until it has fermented to your tastes.
The mushroom will make a baby with each batch. For the next batch I use the ‘mother’ and either give away the baby or put into the compost. For the starter, I just use some of the newly fermented tea.
Have fun!
