and now, for something completely different

[degringolade]

Kombucha Snot Forming (9-11-20)

I am tired of thinking right now.  it's Sunday morning, the air quality index is DOWN to 502 and I am not really interested in writing about anything meaningful. 

So let's talk about gut flora and regular shitting.  That is about the level I want to deal with today. 

I tend to think, and there is data out there that a lot of the problems of us geezers boil down to the simple fact that we eat a lot of weird stuff that our gut flora doesn't like.  We are a holobiont after all and taking care of the little critters that help up on our way is just a good idea. 

Here in hippie-town, guzzling $5.00 bottle of fermented tea is virtue and status signalling of the highest sort.  The stuff ain't bad at all, and if you pimp it up a bit is is refreshing and happy-making.  But five bucks a bottle is just fucking ridiculous.  So, I decided that if I can brew my own beer and cider, there wasn't any reason that I can't brew Kombucha.

So off to the little Russian store I went to pick up a bag of tea.  Russian store sell leaf black tea cheap.  And you get to hang out with Russians who as a group are pretty chill.  $6.99 later and I am walking out with 500 grams of whole leaf black tea. 

So, making the stuff seems pretty simple.  I started on 9-5-20.   I poured around three quarts of water into my stock pot, added 1.5 cups of sugar, a cup and a half of the aforementioned black tea, a half cup of distilled white vinegar (for acid) and a chopped up ginger root (I used one of my hop bags for the tea and the ginger).  I I brought the whole mess to a boil and then turned off the heat and let it cool naturally.  When it cools, pulled out the tea/ginger and poured the mess into a one gallon glass jar (equipped with handy-dandy spigot from the local second hand store).

Now the initial culture medium is prepped.  Now you have to spend more money and find a bottle of hippie shit and use it for the starter.  I went down to the Grocery Outlet an picked up a bottle there.  Make sure that the bottle says live cultures.  Dump that in the sweetened tea and start waiting. 

The picture at the top shows the SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) that eat up all that yummy sugar and turn it into tart stuff to pour down your gullet at six days out.  Doesn't look like much at six days.  just a scum over the top of the culture medium. 

SO, I am thinking this is pretty easy stuff in theory. 

It's Monday morning and getting ready for the daily toil.  SCOBY is opaque and all the way across the top.