Valentine’s Day means the season of love—and we like to think that can also mean giving yourself some extra TLC. After all, it’s wintertime, so tending to your health and well-being is an especially good idea right now. Brewing your own kombucha at home can be a fun and tasty way to do something healthy for yourself…and your loved ones.
That’s why our co-founder Ethan Zuckerman will be sharing his skills in two kombucha brewing workshops in the coming weeks—one at Fifth Season Gardening in Charlottesville and the other at Ellwood Thompson’s in Richmond. “There’s something empowering about it,” he says. “To take something through a fermentation process, there’s something almost magical there.”
As you’ll learn if you join the workshop, the ingredients for making kombucha are pretty simple: green or black tea, sugar, water, a little liquid kombucha for a starter, and a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). If you don’t know anyone who’s brewing kombucha and could share a little SCOBY, you can pick it up at Fifth Season Gardening, Farmstead Ferments, or buy online. As for the sugar, Ethan explains, “You can brew with something as coarse as a turbinado dark sugar, or as fine and refined as a refined white or even powdered sugar.”
Your choice of sugar will be just one of many variables in the brew process—others include temperature, time, amount of starter, and thickness of the SCOBY. For example, a shorter brew time might produce a sweeter kombucha, while a higher temperature means faster fermentation. Ethan says that juggling those factors is the art and science that makes brewing fun. “That’s fermentation—it’s open but within a scope,” he says. “There’s a lot of malleability and flexibility. You can replicate your process or get free-form and wild. It can be different every time.”
What about equipment? You’ll need just a few basics—some things you probably have already, like a pot, a strainer, and a measuring cup, and one you may not have: a large glass vessel (two gallons is a good size). A bandana makes the perfect cover for the vessel while it’s brewing, and optional add-ons are a candy thermometer and a heating pad.
The two-stage process can take about two weeks to a month, Ethan says. “If someone were to get pretty honed in with it, you can start a batch once a week and then every week, you have bottled kombucha that’s ready to go in the fridge.”
Given that kombucha is full of probiotics, digestive enzymes, B vitamins and acetic acid, that’s a pretty sweet Valentine you can give yourself! Come on out to a workshop and learn how it’s done. Click on the links below for more information or to register.
Fifth Season Gardening ~ Charlottesville, VA. Monday, March 9th from 6:00-7:30pm
The Beet at Ellwood Thompson’s ~ Richmond, VA. Monday, March 16th from 6:30-8:00pm