Ever Grown A SCOBY?

I didn't intend to grow a SCOBY in my home.

It was another happy accident!

I used to brew a drink called 

Kombucha

which is a fermented, sweet tea with many health benefits.

It's considered a probiotic drink.

I like it, and I usually buy it prepared, but that has been getting more and more expensive.

I decided to begin to brew my own kombucha again.

All you need to do this is sweetened tea, a glass jar, a bit of raw kombucha and a SCOBY.

A SCOBY is an acronym for 

something, something, something, something, something.

It's also referred to as the mushroom.

The SCOBY is added to the tea to cause the tea to ferment.

You can ferment the tea for as little as a week or as long as a month!

Whew!

The one thing I didn't have to begin the brewing process was the SCOBY and the tea.

I ran up to the food coop in a town not far from here.

I picked up my kombucha kit.

I made my tea and cooled it.  I added the SCOBY in the kit.

I had a few strands of stuff left over from the SCOBY so I added them to another jar of tea to see what would happen. 

Well. the first thing that happened is that my SCOBY sunk to the bottom of my jar.

This is not good, but it's not the end of the kombucha.

It just means that you wait for a new SCOBY to form on the top of the jar.

In the meantime, I ordered a fresh SCOBY from a shop on Etsy. 

Then I waited.

It's been 2.5 weeks now.  Here's what's going on with my SCOBY.

End of week 1, little bits of SCOBY began to form at the top of both jars.

End of week 1, new SCOBY arrived.  New jar of kombucha started.

Doesn't it look like a mushroom?

 End of Week 2 and into week 3

New SCOBY has made it's self at home in the tea.

It's growing well.

This SCOBY actually reminds me of a jelly fish, but it's not.

I look forward to enjoying my kombucha in another week or so.

End of week 2, a new SCOBY is thickening up in the other two jars.

 Today, the SCOBY looks like this.
Interesting!

It will still take a while to enjoy kombucha from this SCOBY,
but it will a homegrown SCOBY.

I'll let you know how the kombucha tastes.