FERMENTATION   Primary  Secondary  Bottling
​In order to assure the quality of your homebrew bucha, practice cleanliness. Prevent contamination by using hot water and distilled white vinegar to sanitize utensils, jars, kitchen counter, and hands.
Batch Method Ingredients:
  • 12 grams (equivalent to 6 tea bags) of organic, non-herbal, loose leaf tea (Camellia sinensis)
  • 14 cups filtered, non-chlorinated water
  • 1 cup (scant) organic cane sugar
  • 1 to 2 cups starter tea (unflavored kombucha)
  • 1 SCOBY and pellicle​
​Primary Fermentation:
  • Pour 7 cups of refrigerated chlorine-free water into a wide mouth gallon jar.
  • Heat 7 cups of water to approximately 190 degrees; Steep tea for 10 minutes.
  • Add sugar to the steeped tea and stir until completely dissolved.
  • Add sweetened tea to the water in the gallon jar. Stir.
  • Allow tea to cool to room temperature.
  • Without rinsing, add a pellicle to the jar. 
  • Finally, add 1 or 2 cups of fermented starter tea. (Adding the starter last acidifies the pH of the sweet tea at the top of the jar, making a protective layer against outside bacteria.)
  • Cover with a natural brown (unbleached) coffee filter or a breathable cloth and secure with a rubber band.
  • Ideal primary fermentation temperature is 80 degrees.
  • Do not move or disturb the primary fermentation for seven days. After at least a week, taste daily until desired level of tartness. (Most batches take 10 to 14 days to ferment.) Generally, the colder the temperature, the longer the fermentation time, but even in the winter, suitable fermentation should take no longer than two weeks.
  • Although most brewers choose to do a secondary fermentation to add flavoring adjuncts and to increase carbonation, ​after the primary fermentation, the unflavored kombucha is finished and ready to be racked into jars or bottles, bottle aged, refrigerated, and consumed.
 Pellicle

​If baiting a hook with a worm makes you squirm, wait until you have to handle a slippery gelatinous pellicle blob. Though ugly to see and creepy to touch, love your Mother for all that she does for your bucha and you.
 A gallon is 128 ounces but a batch of bucha won’t yield a full four quarts. Space is taken up by the SCOBY in the primary jar, liquid will be lost from evaporation during fermentation, and at least a cup of finished kombucha must be reserved for starter tea to pay forward to the next batch.
​   Also, the straw sips to determine if the kombucha tastes ready for secondary fermentation add up to further reduce yield.
   All tolled, count on three>quarts<four worth of bottled bucha per gallon batch.
​Do​n't begrudge the loss of liquid due to evaporation during the aerobic primary fermentation-it's the angels' share.
​Secondary Fermentation:
  • Sanitize four wide mouth quart jars and lids. (One of the jars will be used for one or two cups of starter tea for the next batch; the primary fermenter should yield three+ quarts for the secondary fermentation.)
  • Prep adjunct flavorings--for example, peel and cut apple and ginger into pieces; defrost frozen berries or slice fresh ones into bits; zest lemon.
  • Add flavorings to the quart jars.
  • Wash your hands in hot water and white distilled vinegar, remove the breathable cover from jar, and without rinsing it, add the pellicle to your SCOBY Hotel.
  • Using a sanitized long handled spoon, stir the contents of the kombucha, distributing the yeast and bacteria throughout the liquid.
  • Pour about two cups of finished kombucha tea, which contains the SCOBY (the symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) into a large measuring cup.
  • From the measuring cup, pour the harvested starter tea into one of the quart jars. Until ready to make your next batch, put a breathable cover on the starter tea jar and secure with a rubber band. Do not refrigerate.
  • Pour the kombucha from the gallon jar into the large measuring cup and from the measuring cup into the quart jars. Fill the jars so that little air space is left, and then seal with lids.
  • Allow the secondary batch to ferment unrefrigerated for two to three days.
After refrigerating, the bucha is ready to be served from the quart jars by pouring into a glass. It's a bit messy because of the adjunct flavorings and bits of residual yeast and bacteria, so use a strainer. Another option is to bottle from the quart jars.
Seal the lid on tight and burp the carbon dioxide gas during the anaerobic secondary fermentation.
Give the adjuncts two to three days to impart their flavors.
​​Bottling:
  • Thoroughly clean enough bottles to rack secondary fermented bucha from the wide mouth jars. Use distilled white vinegar, hot water, and agitate inside of the bottles with a bottle brush. Rinse with hot water.
  • If desired, put a small piece of ginger in each bottle for more intense flavor and increased carbonation.
  • Insert a funnel and strainer and fill bottles to the brim. (Less air equals more carbonation.)
  • Cap bottles.
  • Although explosions are rare, store in a tote with the lid closed.
  • Allow bucha to bottle condition for two or three days and then refrigerate.
Bottling is actually a tertiary fermentation because residual yeast and bacteria will continue to work.
Although not harmful to consume, squeamish bucha drinkers should strain out any remaining ooglies.