Have Fun Making Kombucha, Kombucha Vinegar and Delicious Jun
Instructions
Making 1 gallon of kombucha: Start with a delicious tea. Use the teabag from your kit, or 10-12 teabags of any tea you love. Boil 1 gallon of water, and add tea. Stir in one cup of sugar. Remove tea after 10 minutes. Let it cool and add the entire culture 8.8 oz culture packet. Put it in a clean container and cover it with a clean cloth. Your kombucha will get more sour every day. It's ready any day it tastes good to you. You can refrigerate it to stop the fermentation.
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Making 1 quart of jun: Start with delicious green tea. Boil 1 quart of water, and add 3-4 teabags. Stir in 1/4 cup of your favorite honey. Remove the tea bags after 4 minutes. Let it cool and add the entire 4.5 oz culture packet.
Put it in a clean container and cover it with a clean cloth. Jun brews fast and does well in cooler temperatures. Your jun will get more sour every day. It's ready any day it tastes good to you. You can refrigerate it to stop the fermentation.
Making 1 quart of kombucha vinegar: Start with a 1 quart bottle of your favorite fruit juice. Pour a little of the juice out to make room for the culture. Add the entire 4.5 oz culture packet. Let it brew in the bottle the juice came in. Cover it with a clean cloth. Let it brew for 30-40 days. You can store your vinegar in the bottle you made it in at room temperature.
Our cultures are simple to brew. Don't overthink it. Follow the recipe. Keep things in and around your batch clean. Keep a positive attitude. Think good thoughts about your brew. We believe a little love makes for a better outcome. Use ingredients you love.
Vinegar Recipes
Nearly any bottled fruit juice can make great vinegar. Our favorite juices are any blueberry/raspberry/cranberry combo, mango, concord grape, or lemonade. Pure, unsweetened pineapple juice makes my all-time fav vinegar. My second fav - let black tea kombucha brew for 35 days, add a good pinch of red chili flakes and a few pieces of lemon peel to the jar, and let it sit together in the jar for a few days. When your vinegar is finished brewing, you can add a little garlic, rosemary, thyme, orange peel, dried elderberries, a few black peppercorns, or a few thin slices of fresh hot red chilis, and you can store your batch with these ingredients in the bottle at room temperature.
Look at the nutritional panel on the juice bottle and check the calorie count. If it has at least 100 calories per 8-ounce serving, you are good to go. Skip juice with reduced sugar. I've made vinegar from juice with corn sweeteners, citric acid, artificial colors, and fumaric acid. You might choose juice without those ingredients, but they will work. I've tested lots of the national juice brands and all made good vinegar. Even Snapple made pretty good vinegar. In taste tests, the universal least favs were apple juice and orange juice, and by a wide margin, prune juice.
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Use your homemade vinegar in salad dressings, or add a bit to mayo for an extra kick. Top a bowl of hot soup with a 1/2 tsp. Google refrigerator pickles and substitute your homemade vinegar in the recipe. Use vinegar in place of lemon juice for a sophisticated lemonade. Mix equal parts mayo, honey, peanut butter or almond butter, and homemade vinegar for a fab dipping sauce for chicken or tofu.
Sanitizing
​Keep hands, utensils, and containers clean when making your batches. Skip using containers that have been used to ferment other products. The simplest way to sanitize your gear is with boiling water. If you need to sanitize your gear, put your brew container in the sink, put the cloth cover and utensils in the brew container and fill the container with boiling water. Let it sit until it's cool enough to handle.
My favorite kombucha
My favorite kombucha is made with "Sleepytime" tea. It's delicious, caffeine free, and great before bed. I also like kombucha brewed with rose petal tea. I make it with just rose petals. It's also good with black tea and rose petals. Two drops of good vanilla extract added after brewing is done give a soft sweetness to black tea kombucha. Kombucha made from black coffee in Japan.