Kombucha – the first batch

My first batch of Kombucha is ready, and to quote Anakin Skywalker from The Phantom Menace….YIPEE!!!!

For those that don’t know, Kombucha is fermented sweet tea. Sounds weird I know, but I am brewing it for its health benefits. So I figured even if it tasted horrible, I would just down it as a tonic. However I was pleasantly surprised. When I get more experienced with the brewing process, it should be a very enjoyable drink.

The taste of the first batch was a little sour though. This is probably down to the fact that the instructions recommended leaving it to ferment for 7-10 days and I left it for 14 days. Overall it was a success. It tastes a little bit like White Wine. So I think I will drink the first batch with a bit of Soda Water, and make Kombucha Spritzer’s. I am using a Continuous Batch method, so the container is already filled back up with Sweet Tea. I will just leave it 7 days this time, so it should be sweeter.

So how did I get onto the Kombucha Train? Well I started a Ketogenic Diet in January’16. The first 6 weeks were a breeze. Then TRAIN CRASH… for 2 weeks I had really bad digestive issues. So I tracked what I was eating, to see what I was doing wrong. I fathomed that I was not getting enough Fibre and no apparent sources of Probiotics. As well as eating a lot of Cheese and Cream. So I tweaked my diet a bit. I started having a vegetable smoothie, which includes an Avacado, Spincah, Corriander, Mint, Basil, Psyllium Husk and Flax Seed. Therefore getting a large portion of Fibre straight away. Then after my salad for lunch, I have some natural yoghurt with a hand full of berries and nuts. This gets some probiotics into my system. But to take the probiotics to the next level, I have started making sauerkraut and now have my Kombucha.

 

The below stated benefits of Kombucha are taken from;

http://draxe.com/7-reasons-drink-kombucha-everyday/

• Improved Digestion
• Weight Loss
• Increased Energy
• Cleansing and Detoxification
• Immune Support
• Reduced Joint Pain
• Cancer Prevention

 

Beneficial Probiotics in Kombucha

An article published in the journal Food Microbiology established that the following probiotics make up this health elixir:

• Gluconacetobacter(>85 percent in most samples)
• Acetobacter(<2 percent)
• Lactobacillus(up to 30 percent in some samples)
• Zygosaccharomyces(>95 percent)

 

I bought my Kombucha Kit from;

http://happykombucha.co.uk/collections/continuous-brewing-kits/products/medium-kombucha-continuous-brewing-kit