How to brew a 1 gallon batch of kombucha tea at home.

Brew your own tea Kombucha at home! Save money and receive the health benefits of this gut healthy, fermented, probiotic drink. Learn about the Kombucha Scoby and how easy it is to make this drink at home.

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Kombucha 1 Gallon Recipe
Supplies:
Brewing vessel or jar 1 gallon or larger with stainless steel spigot
Pot to boil water- I use a 3quart pot
Cotton cloth cover with rubber band- I use a flour sack dish towel. Do not use cheesecloth.
Ingredients:
Filtered water
Black, green or white tea plain teabags
Sugar
Kombucha Scoby in plain kombucha
Star San Sanitizer for home brewing
Brewing recipe for 1 gallon kombucha tea (double for 2 gallons):
First brew a strong, sweet tea
Use your pot and boil 4 cups of filtered water. Remove from heat and add four teabags. My Scoby is used to one black teabag, and three green tea teabags. Seep the teabags for seven minutes then dispose of the bags, add one cup of sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves.
Put 12 cups of cool filtered water in your brewing vessel. Then add the sweet tea mixture to the water in the vessel. Last add your starter liquid, which includes your Scoby to the vessel. Covered the top with your towel and secure with a rubber band. Put in a safe place, like on top of the fridge to let ferment. Leave it for seven days.
You can now bottle it we use growlers. Make sure everything you use is very clean so bad bacteria does not start to grow- use Star San in the vessel’s before you use them. Once you have bottled your kombucha, you remove the Scoby and put it in a smaller glass container with a dish towel and rubber band on top until you are ready to brew another batch. Your growlers can now go in the fridge and are ready to drink unless you want to do a second fermentation.
If you want carbonation and flavor you can do a 2nd fermentation with the kombucha.
Second fermentation takes 2 to 4 days you can use organic juice or syrups. Always make sure you have removed your Scoby and keep it with some starter brew before doing second fermentation. You can use half a cup of juice per growler and leave 3 inches at the top for the carbonation. After 4-5 days in the fridge it should be ready to drink.
Notes: we skip second fermentation because we want less carbonation and like the tea flavors.
Never seal your Scoby in a container always let it breathe with a cloth on top.
If you want to change tea types, you need to do it slowly if your Scoby is used to a certain type of tea. We slowly changed ours from black to black and mostly green tea.
If you do not have access to a Scoby you can brew with plain pure Kombucha and it should grow its own Scoby