Base Kombucha Recipe

Base Kombucha Recipe #

This is a very basic kombucha recipe using easy to find ingredients. It should yield 1 gallon of finished kombucha.

Since you must retain 2 cups to start your next batch you will end with 14 cups finished kombucha for bottling (or about 7 16oz bottles).

Ingredients #

  • 2 cups kombucha starter
  • 4 cups sweet tea (see below)
  • 10 cups cold water

Procedures #

1. Make sweet tea #

  1. In a sauce pan, bring 4 cups water to a boil.
  2. Remove from heat, let cool until no longer boiling (1-2 min)
  3. Add 6 Lipton (or any black tea) bags, let steep 6 minutes
  4. Remove tea bags, mix in 1 cup sugar until dissolved
  5. 4 cups sweet tea are now finished

2. Prepare fermenter #

Wash a 1 gallon fermenter well with soap and hot water. Consider spraying with diluted StarSan solution for sanitization.

3. Mix Kombucha #

  1. Add 10 cups cold water to fermenter
  2. Add 4 cups sweet tea to fermenter
  3. Ensure diluted tea in fermenter is not too hot (I usually shoot for below 85 degrees)
  4. Add 2 cups starter liquid

4. Ferment #

  1. Place tight woven cloth cover over fermenter opening, secure with rubber band.
    • This will allow air exchange, but will keep flies out
  2. Place in a warm area or supply supplemental heat with a heat pad (generally shoot to ferment around 75-82 degrees F)
  3. Allow to ferment until finished (about 7-10 days)

Starting your next batch #

Once fermentation is complete, reserve 2 cups of fermented kombucha as your starter for your next batch. Bottle the remaining fermented kombucha with flavoring.

You may discard the biofilm (or retain it if you want). See Retaining the biofilm for more thoughts on that matter.