Kombucha Tea - Part 4, The Mother
I posted all these photos on my Facebook site so you can copy and paste them!
I'm going to insert the photos where they fit in the text soon.
Mother, Baby, Scoby, Mushroom, . . . What is it already?
As you can see in the photos, I have a lot of baby Scobies stored in two pickle jars. The Babies are now mothers and have created their own Babies in the jars. Since these photos I’ve started a third jar. I have to get rid of some. It’s like “The Trouble with Tribbles,” Star Trek episode. LOL!
You can see the Baby and the Mother in the jars with the Kombucha tea. The Baby is on top. The Mother is on the bottom.
Some brown gunky stuff might form in the bottle or on the scoby. It’s not bad. You can grab it and throw it out when you bottle it.
Some brown gunky stuff might form in the bottle or on the scoby. It’s not bad. You can grab it and throw it out when you bottle it.
The powdery stuff at the bottom is good yeast, as I stated earlier.
I have photos of beautiful scobies, weird looking scobies, and brownish scobies. They are all good scobies. Some form a full baby, some form a partial baby. Some are fatter than others.
These photos show an unusual scoby. It formed thin and dry in some areas. I threw it out. It wasn’t really touching the tea 100%. The Mother at the bottom of the jar is fat and happy though! I just left her in there to make another batch. You may have a thin Baby. That’s ok. Dry is not too good. Although, on a desert island in a pinch, I’d try it! LOL!
These show little Mothers being made. If you store Kombucha bottles with material and a rubberband rather than a screwed on lid, you WILL make little Mothers, which will then make little Babies. You store it the same way you would for the bigger jars.
These show a beautiful little Mother! If put in a big jar, it will make a big batch of Kombucha. It will just take a little longer. The Baby will probably be thin. You can keep the Mother and the Baby in the jar for as many batches as you need for it to grow bigger.
For Your Information ~
FYI - You must not set the scoby in a Corelle Ware bowl or plate if you decide to set it aside while you cook the tea. I’ve broken 4 of my Corelle bowls doing this. Once I went back and the bowl was broken with the scoby still in it! Whatever was holding it together was sucked out by the scoby. LOL! You must use glass (non-cookware, not a measuring glass), stainless steel or even a paper plate.
FYI - You can always use a bottle of store bought Kombucha as starter tea. You can also make your own Mother with a store-bought bottle. Just open the lid, cover with cotton shirt material, rubber band it and let sit for 2 to 4 weeks. A new Mother will be born! From this you can make a bigger mother in a small batch of tea and then a huge batch. It will take longer than 10 days, maybe 14 days to make the bigger Mother.
FYI – If you have more people that want starter Mothers than you have starter mothers you can cut them up. A piece will start a batch. They can make a whole Mother from just a piece. I have seen a web site that sells little tiny vials of Kombucha with a small tiny piece of a scoby in it for people to start their own Kombucha. It just takes longer. You have to make a Mother and make starter tea from that little piece and that small amount of Kombucha, maybe with about 4 cups of sugar/tea, before you can make a regular big batch.
FYI – I found one web site that sells scobies and large starter Mothers. They ship them in ZIP-LOC BAGS! I would think that the Kombucha would suck out toxins from the bag, but it’s much cheaper than jars. Wild!
FYI - You can always use a bottle of store bought Kombucha as starter tea. You can also make your own Mother with a store-bought bottle. Just open the lid, cover with cotton shirt material, rubber band it and let sit for 2 to 4 weeks. A new Mother will be born! From this you can make a bigger mother in a small batch of tea and then a huge batch. It will take longer than 10 days, maybe 14 days to make the bigger Mother.
FYI – If you have more people that want starter Mothers than you have starter mothers you can cut them up. A piece will start a batch. They can make a whole Mother from just a piece. I have seen a web site that sells little tiny vials of Kombucha with a small tiny piece of a scoby in it for people to start their own Kombucha. It just takes longer. You have to make a Mother and make starter tea from that little piece and that small amount of Kombucha, maybe with about 4 cups of sugar/tea, before you can make a regular big batch.
FYI – I found one web site that sells scobies and large starter Mothers. They ship them in ZIP-LOC BAGS! I would think that the Kombucha would suck out toxins from the bag, but it’s much cheaper than jars. Wild!