Kombucha: The Second Ferment

I have been so excited to get to this point with my kombucha. I checked on it everyday during the first fermentation, which can last anywhere between 7 and 21 days. I was hopeful mine would be closer to 7 days than 21, because I knew we were all dying to get this going on the second round.

Mine was ready to be flavored at 10 days. It was surprisingly still super sweet, and not vinegary at all. Even though it smelled like pure vinegar! 

I was planning on flavoring my kombucha with berries and lemons, however when I looked into using citrus to flavor your kombucha, it seemed like more work than I would be capable of right now. (You must be willing to burp your bottles everyday to prevent them from exploding! Not something I want to experiment with right now!) 

I decided to flavor all of the kombucha with blackberries. YUM.

You need to rinse everything with hot water and vinegar before you do anything! 

Then I pulled out my SCOBY's as gently as possible. You need to be sure your hands have been rinsed with vinegar and water before you pull it out. 

I was extremely pleased to see how healthy my SCOBY was, but even more thrilled to see the HUGE, thriving SCOBY it birthed! 

I am still really proud of that pretty culture! 

There will be a lot of brown stringy things underneath your SCOBY, its just yeast and is actually a good sign. You can strain them out though, so don't get too grossed out. 

Now you need to check the pH level one more time to ensure that your kombucha is perfect. I was happy to see that mine was. 

Now put the fruit/herbs in your jars that your kombucha will do the second ferment in. I smashed about half of the blackberries before putting them into the jars, the rest I cut in half. 

Once you pour the kombucha into the jars, seal them up and put them back in your warm fermenting spot. The colder your kombucha gets, the slower the fermentation process goes. This round of fermenting is all about flavor and getting it to be effervescent. You will want to check it everyday, and when it is good to you, put it in the fridge to slow down the fermenting. 

Check in with me next week when I go into details about why I am so obsessed with making kombucha!

Thanks for reading,
Chelsea