So you’ve been making your own kombucha at home, and things are going awesome. Plain kombucha is great, but it only gets greater when you add some flavor.
When you flavor your kombucha recipe, you’re also giving it a bit of extra carbonation. This extra boost of flavor and fizziness will knock your ‘bucha up a notch, and the limitless options will keep your creativity flowing.
The process is very simple. Essentially what you’re doing is bottling the fresh kombucha recipe with a new source of sugar, this time in the form of your chosen fruits and flavors. This initiates a second round of fermentation, and after a couple days you’ll have a greatly enhanced and more interesting beverage.
You can use either fresh fruit or organic juices. Be creative, and experiment. The more fruit (and therefore sugar) you add, the more quickly it will carbonate, so be conservative at first until you get an idea of how much you want to add. A general rule of thumb for juices is to have no more than 20% juice, or a 1:5 juice-to-kombucha ratio.
An example that I enjoyed recently was ginger and organic pear juice. Add a little bit of pear juice to each bottle (about 1/6th the volume, or about 2oz for a 12oz bottle). Cut up ginger into small bits, and add a few chunks to each bottle. You can also use candied ginger for extra sweetness.
If you are trying different things for different bottles, make sure you label them so you remember what you did!
[directions title=”Directions: Flavoring Your Kombucha Recipe”]- Wash your hands!
- Remove the SCOBY from the kombucha brew.
- Add your chosen flavorings to your bottles. Make sure any solid bits are cut small enough that they won’t get stuck in the bottle
- Fill each bottle with your fresh kombucha. Leave about an inch of headroom, keeping in mind the carbonation.
- Let the bottles sit for 2 or 3 days. After this phase, the secondary fermentation is complete and you can toss them in the fridge and enjoy them whenever you feel.
- Sometimes during secondary fermentation, tiny little mini SCOBYs will form in the bottles. This is totally normal, and you can just drink ’em up without fear.
And there you have it. If you’re looking for inspiration, here’s a few more ideas for ways to flavor your kombucha. Mix and match them and see what you can come up with!
Kombucha Recipe Ideas:
[unordered_list style=”arrow”]- Lemon/lime juice.
- Goji berries.
- Chia seeds.
- Orange juice.
- Sour cherry
- Rose
- Blueberries
Photo Credits: Kelly Johanna
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[…] At this point, you have successfully brewed kombucha. Congratulations! You can enjoy it the way it is and everything will be wonderful. If you want to take things further, you can also add flavor to your kombucha. […]