The Mighty Booch: Home Brewing Kombucha Tea

This is my kitchen on brewing/bottling day. As I've mentioned, I have a newfound love of home-brewed Kombucha. There are lots of real experts out there (links to follow), but I can give you a quick and dirty beginners guide to starting up a brew, and why on earth you might want to do such a thing! 

Mocktail Hour: Grapefruit Kombucha Spritzer

I've mentioned that I was a bartender many moons ago, but I never did work in a cocktail bar. Nor are we the biggest spirit drinkers, especially at home. Even out, I know what I like, and I like what I know - I'll take an Old Fashioned or a classic Margarita on the rocks. But a nice virgin cocktail? Yes please, any old time! I first fell in love with them on vacation - we went to India a few years ago, and it just felt culturally appropriate to be more abstemious than I might be in Europe. I was covered up, and feeling all ladylike. Plus it was hot, and I don't know about you, but boozing in the heat seems like the quickest way to spend your time feeling sub-par. And when you're pregnant or breastfeeding, it's nice to have something a bit more festive than club soda. Anyway, all that to say that I do enjoy a non-alcoholic cocktail.

This is just a simple, refreshing summer spritzer. I'd consider this a morning drink, because that's when I like to drink Kombucha. If you're not terribly sensitive to caffeine, like I am, it's good any time! You'll need:

1 good sized grapefruit, half juiced, half sliced.

250 ml Kombucha tea (or more, see note below)

A splash of sparking water

Fresh mint

Ice

So first, obviously you need to juice and slice your grapefruit. If you have any of those cool cocktail tools for making little zest ribbons, do that first. They're adorable. You're going to want to cheat your 'halves' a little bit: make one larger than the other, and juice that side. Here's a little trick for making citrus slices pretty - make sure to cut across the width (belly?) of the fruit, to go across the segments rather than lengthwise. Fill your glasses with grapefruit slices, ice, and mint. Bruise the mint leaves a bit by hand. 

Then the ratio is roughly as follows: 1/4 of the glass will be grapefruit juice, 1/2 Kombucha, then top up the last 1/4 with sparkling water. This made two drinks, one for me and my guy. Yum! 

If you did want to spike it, I think good, flavourful gin would be a winner - something like Hendricks. 

A note on the Kombucha: 

I use home-brewed Kombucha, which I struggle to get a really good fizz going in (I suspect my canning jars aren't airtight enough, but I understand this is a common problem.) If you're using really well-carbonated commercial Kombucha, you won't need the fizzy water - just use more booch! If you are a home-brewer, I think this recipe is perfect for those days when you only have single-fermented Kombucha on hand, or you're running out and want to make your supply go a little further. 

I promise, I will post about Kombucha brewing soon! I am obsessed, and I have it every day. 

Here's to summer! Now, is some really hot weather too much to ask for?

Project Sourdough: Bumps in the Road, Or Why Home Fermenting is a Bitch-Goddess

Damn you, home fermenting, damn you!!! I've been having a disappointing series of kitchen fails, mostly to do with Sourdough, and now Kombucha. My Sourdough falls flat, and my very first batch of 'buch MOLDED because my kitchen is too cold. Shall I recap? This might be sweary, I'll try to keep it clean.

So, Sourdough:
I've continued to try various bread recipes using my starter, all turning out way too dense. Another malthouse turned out like pumpernickel. I was so disappointed with the rise on a San Francisco-style loaf that I resorted to adding some quick yeast AFTER the second rise and luckily got enough of an oven spring to salvage that em-effer (above). Still, disappointing. Tried the following fixes:

Kept the starter at room temperature for a few days before using.
Changed the jar when the above fix resulted in a tiny bit of mold on the edge of the jar.
Fed more regularly.
Proofed at room temperature.
Checked the dough regularly to suss out the tolerance.
Tried different oven temps, both experimenting and to-the-letter recipe following.

Of course, the answer is obvious. I should get my hands on a known good starter to narrow down the list of potential problems. If I know my starter works, then I must be going wrong somewhere with dough tolerance, or temperature. Have I mentioned that our kitchen is cold? That can't help. What's frustrating though, is that the starter smells good! It smells right! It smells sour and complex, and the dough does actually get some big, sexy air bubbles. What's wrong with it??? 

So my plan is to get some good starter, from where I don't know yet, and try again, all while continuing to maintain my lovely rye starter. I'm also going to get my hands on a proving basket (is it proving, or proofing? I see both on t'internet. Any bread nerds out there?) and do this right. And I do know that there's no turning back - I've made some bread with quick yeast since, and it just doesn't have the flavour or the crust.

And Kombucha! What the hell!! I thought, since sourdough is proving to be a troublesome, erm, Berkshire Hunt, I'll do an easy ferment for the summer. I bought a Scoby (and named it Scobias), and set up what was to be a continuous brew. I happen to like Kombucha, and I get a kick out of making something that's normally expensive for next to nothing. Sounds great! No, mold. MOLD. 

 

So excited! So naive!

 

Whaaaa???
 

The Internet seems to think that Kombucha is actually difficult to screw-up, unless you're a screw-up, like me. The company I bought the Scoby from, Happy Kombucha, have actually been really helpful in diagnosing our problem, so I am going to try again. I'll have to brew upstairs somewhere, near the goddamn thermostat if I have to, and I will probably wait a few batches before attempting a continous set-up again. Then I shall report back! Hopefully with better results! So today I bought a bottle of commercial Kombucha just to bum myself out further about what I WON'T be making this week. 

Now, if you need me, I'll be over here crying into my guacamole. Not really, I'll be eating it.

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