
It’s been busy around here, but we always make time to keep our cultures – and guts – happy. Today, I harvested kombucha and water kefir, and started a batch of Kkakdugi ( 깍두기, Korean radish kimchi).
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It’s been busy around here, but we always make time to keep our cultures – and guts – happy. Today, I harvested kombucha and water kefir, and started a batch of Kkakdugi ( 깍두기, Korean radish kimchi).

It’s ‘booch harvest day, and three gorgeous bottles of the good stuff are sitting quietly on a shelf on the fermentation station, working their second ferment magic. Sometimes I have to take a step back and marvel at the various ferments in different stages – I am, after all, a microbe farmer (mad scientist?), too.

I’ve been brewing the amazing elixir known as Kombucha Tea for years now. With this ferment, an unusual-looking culture transforms sweetened tea into probiotic goodness, thanks to the hard work of the Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY): the disc-shaped pellicle formed by the microbes responsible for performing the magic.

The first batch of Kombucha Tea wine I made was a hit. Arguably even tastier than plain black tea wine (which is good in its own right), it had a delicately fruit-forward flavor that balanced the complex, pleasingly tart edge to the brew. How will batch #2 turn out?

As I shared in an earlier post, I constantly have vinegar-in-progress working away in jars and crocks. Periodically, I harvest the kombucha vinegar and do a SCOBY “clean out” to make room for new pellicle growth…and never fail to be amazed at the size these SCOBYs attain!

We love our kombucha – a delicious probiotic drink made from cultured sweet tea – around here. I’m always looking for new and creative ways to use this wonderful elixir, so when I found instructions for making kombucha tea wine, I had to try it.