Fizzy and Pink Cherry Pomegranate Kombucha

So ... do you remember that I've gotten into brewing homemade Kombucha?

I like kombucha enough to drink. I like it a lot more than soda, and it is a good alternative to water or coffee for me to drink at work with my lunch. However, it is way too expensive for me to want to actually buy it.

It is easy and inexpensive to brew at home, so I just make it myself.

My process is simple:

1. Dissolve 1 cup of sugar in enough water to brew 8 to 10 tea bags worth of concentrated sweet tea.
2. Pour the tea into a gallon glass jar with a little ice to cool it down. Fill the jar the rest of the way with water.
3. Add a SCOBY and a little kombucha from the last batch to the jar.
4. Let the tea ferment for a couple of weeks. 
5. Pour the fermented kombuca along with some fruit juice or other flavoring into bottles.
6. Let those bottles carbonate for a few days.

The SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast) will eat the sugar in the tea and make the liquid tart.

Once the juice and the kombucha is in the bottle, bacteria and yeast still in the liquid will eat sugar from the yeast and make carbonation bubbles.

Nice and fizzy and tart. And if you use a red juice like Cherry Pomegranate, pink.

I understand that kombucha is not for everyone, but I find it delicious. I might be becoming a hipster.

Supposedly, it is also really good for you with all those pro-biotics that the SCOBY leaves in there. With all the fermented food I make and eat, I should be extremely healthy from all the pro-biotics I get. (and I have no complaints currently)

I have made both black tea and green tea. I don't really like one over the other.

I've tried multiple juices for flavoring / carbonation. Cherry Pomegranate is my favorite, but others are good too.

I even sent home a little kit of SCOBY, tea bags, starter kombucha, and instructions with my wife's cousin who visited our house on Christmas (Troy, if you read this, leave a comment on how your kombucha turned out).

Let me know if you have questions in the comments below. If you live by me, I'm totally willing to share SCOBYs and starter kombucha with you.

If you want to read more about kombucha on this blog, see: Sheppy's Blog: Kombucha.

Go Blackhawks!