I had some at a homebrewers club meeting last week and have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I love sour beers so it didn’t turn me off at first sip. The vinegar was an interesting side note. Guess I will have to make some.
I’ve got some in bottles and some working at home. My wife is rather fond of it. I don’t know if it was the culture I started with or something I have done but it’s very strong flavored. not overwhelmingly vinegar but just overall strong. it works well to make a cocktail with ginger ‘aide’ and sparkly water. I primed the bottles when I filled them but they did not produce and sparkle in the bottle so I’m not sure what happened there.
good for your belly from what I hear.
Id like to try it but im having a hard time finding a culture that isnt crazy expensive.
can you buy live kombucha? I started mine from a growler of some local company. it said live cultures on the label. I decanted a bit more than half and pitched the other half into about .5 gallons of tea/sugar/water and let it go. it took a week or so before I saw scum developing on the surface. then after about three weeks I pitched that into ~3 gallons of tea/sugar/water and saw results much faster. at this point it’s a big spooky disk on top of the liquid.
Not that i have seen, I have yet to check the farmers markets because i have a hard time being able to get to them. I need to have a few friends keep an eye out
While it may be pricey up front, a kombucha culture is meant to be kept and maintained. They range from a few bucks to over twenty on amazon.
Search kombucha scoby
If you know someone who makes kombucha ask for a " mother" when they have extra. Each time you make it you end up with the original plus a new one. I gave a few away when I used to make it.
They are super easy to just start on your own. Don’t buy one, the satisfaction of making a real creepy looking goo that lives on top of something your wife wants to drink is worth it!
My neighbor makes kombucha for his gluten intolerant wife as an alternative to beer when he’s not brewing for himself. Sounds like we could start selling the SCOBY and undercut Amazon! 
I’ve had good luck culturing a kombucha SCOBY from a bottle of GT Kombucha from the grocery store. It’s a good idea to step up the batch size until your SCOBY gets to full size, much like culturing yeast from a bottled brew. I went with the original, and it worked for me. YMMV.
that’s the brand I used.
I just bottled my first batch of kombucha. I tried kombucha for the first time recently. Honestly, I thought the ones I tried were a little bland, but I definitely saw enough potential to want to try it out myself. I grew up a SCOBY from the dregs of a few bottles of Live Kombucha Soda. I stepped it up similar to stepping up bottle dregs from a beer.
From what I understand, a lot of Kombucha makers reformulated their products a few years back when there were some concerns that the refermented Kombucha could potentially exceed 1% ABV. What I don’t like about the Live Soda is that they sweeten with something like stevia or splenda, which leaves an “artificial sweetener” taste. The good thing is that this means that their culture probably isn’t doctored, since they aren’t back-sweetening with sugar. It took a little time, but I have a nice jellyfish going on right now.
I backsweetened this batch with Pom-blueberry juice and bottled in 12oz PET soda bottles. I’m hoping I’ll get a nice fizz out of them, but they’re already pretty damn tasty even if they don’t sparkle up too much,
I like it, but it sure can look a little creepy.
erockrph, what vessel are you fermenting in? I have been using an old big pickle jar and some big Ball jars…seems like I always spill some when transferring to bottles. I have been trying to transfer without getting a bunch of sludge in the bottles and have yet to settle on a good system.
RE: carbonation, I have found that what you add for flavor at bottling can have an effect - last batch I tried both some with grape juice and some with elderberry concentrate. The grape carbed fast and became quite fizzy, while the elderberry is still fairly flat. Sugar content I suppose.
Looking forward to your thoughts, as I know you are a sucker for experimenting. 
When I have free reign to fill empty spaces with odd fermentations again I will get one of those ice tea jars with a spout at the bottom. then you can fill bottles at will and top off with new… substrate? wort? must?
I had kombucha going for a year or so a few years back. I used a big glass cookie jar because a lot of surface area is good. When done I poured it into a juice pitcher, let it settle, then decanted into mason jars to drink from. I never tried to carbonate it, it was always a bit fizzy without trying much. My basic recipe used regular black tea, lapsang suchong, and organic sugar. Most batches I didn’t flavor from there. I found adding juices and such made it less refreshing.
Right now I just have one 2-quart Ball jar for my main fermentation vessel. I have been leaving the lid loosely screwed on so that it can let out gas during fermentation. If this ends up working out for me, I’ll probably add a second vessel if this SCOBY has a baby.
For bottling, I poured out most of the kombucha carefully through a fine mesh strainer (to catch any gunk or in case the SCOBY slipped out) into a sanitized pitcher, and left the mother and maybe a cup of liquid behind. I added the juice at that point, then poured into bottles through a funnel. Then I brewed more tea and topped off the SCOBY jar.
What’s everyone using for tea? I’m using green tea, since I prefer the flavor. It seems like most people use black tea, though. I’m wondering if there’s any differences other than just flavor.
My wife is the kombucha brewer in my house and we go through a couple of gallons of a week. She’s used all kinds of tea - black, green, white and oolong, but has settled on 6 bags of black per gallon.
EDIT: She tells me she’s found that with all black tea the SCOBY stays healthier and the kombucha is more sour/robust.
I harvested from three bottles of three different flavors. I have it going in a quart size mason jar. Only a week down and I see something floating on the top. Not sure if it is a scoby or not. From what I read and pictures I have seen it should be white or translucent. But again it is only been one week. Will step it up to a gallon in about two more weeks if I see more on the top. If not, I will try to find a local brewer that will give/sell me one.
Sounds similar to my experience. Started to see some gunk floating at about a week, and got a disk of jelly around two weeks or so. The brown strands (which I believe are the yeast part of the SCOBY) formed pretty late in the process. At that point I stepped up from a pint to 2 quarts and brewed my first batch. The original starter was pretty vinegary at that point, but I wanted to let it go pretty far before I stepped it up. The first 1/2 gallon batch saw the SCOBY thicken quite a bit.
I bottled around 10 days into the ferment and it was still a bit sweet, but pleasingly tart as well. For my second batch the SCOBY developed more brown tentacles in just a couple of days. I have a feeling that this batch will finish sooner than my first one as the SCOBY is still developing.
That is what I have found as well. I have tried green, white, and yerba mate tea mixes in the last few batches, and the SCOBYs have become thin and the product is not nearly as vinegary and seems to take longer.
That said, they still work, given time. I am ready to bottle a batch tomorrow, and will try again with an all black tea start to try and get a fat slabby SCOBY again.
Mort, I do have one of those gallon jars with the pour spout…we use it for sun tea. I am going to try your idea.
Cheers.