[foodhackingbase] Help needed!

Tue Jan 29 08:47:55 CET 2013

Hi Slowomir and all! 
Because you are on the food hacking base list, I posting there too now, answers in the text.

Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck

biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker

http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

________________________________
 From: Slawomir Jabs <slawek.jabs at proidea.org.pl>
To: Frantisek Apfelbeck <algoldor at yahoo.com> 
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 8:55 PM
Subject: Help needed!

Hey!
It's good the hear you made it back to Korea.

Actually I need your help. I have started brewing Komboocha yet I am at the
verge of not knowing what to do now.
So looking back at the history:

1.At the beginning of January i made a setup for brewing the mother from
what you gave me at the ccc. Around  2-2,5 L of tea + sugar in a jar to
prepare the base for further processes.

2. That stayed for somewhere around 25 days and has grew a nice 7mm thick
mother. I hope it's not a problem it stood longer then two weeks (which you
told me to do)?can you clarify?

>> well you let it little bit over I guess especially if the temperature was above 20 degrees but it should be fine, it is growing. It is quite handy to leave the mother grow in one batch for longer at the beginning because you get thicker mother which is more easy to manipulate/transfer, however the liquid is too strong to drink but it can be used for vinager if aged. 

3. Yestarday i took a huge put with 10l of tea+ 1kg sugar and moved the
mother and half of the liquid to it and covered with a cloth.

>> The mother should be big enough to take care about this volume of sugar/tea syrup (growing medium), however the concentration which is around 10% (w/v) is bit too high meaning that it will be quite strong ferment. I generally use 6% (w/v) of sugar so in your case I would dissolve 600 g in final volume of 10 l. Which sugar did you use? Light brown sugar is more nourishing for the microbes but it gives a bit of molases flavour which not everyone enjoyes.

What to do next, i assume that it should take around 2 weeks for the first
part of the fermentation and then I should bottle the liquid, right? How
much longer should i keep it bottled before drinking?

>> If you ferment at the temperature of around 20 degrees or higher than you should check the taste after 5 days or so, depending also on the size of your mother (bigger = faster fermentation). I would say that within 10 days you can have your brew for flavouring/bottling. You can check more details about these steps on the link below

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Kombucha_Brewing_Manual

>> but in a simple way strain your kombucha, preferably through some cheesecloth or muslin (or other textile to take out pieces of kombucha which not everyone likes in the drink and which helps to form kombucha mother in your bottles faster) to some bowl and after that make sure that the brew is bit sweeter than you like it and once it is so, bottle it and make sure that the bottles are air tight. If you leave it for another one or two days at room temperature you will get a nice gassification, once happy move it to the fridge and I recommend to leave it to sit/mature for one or two weeks, it gets better but you can drink immediately. If you do not like your drink fizzy make sure that you bottle it when it is right to your taste and again let mature in the fridge. By the way it is really good to bottle the drink at least to one plastic bottle because you can see and touch feeling the pressure which builds up in the bottle, otherwise I like to use glass
 for my drinks whenever I can.

Are there any parts of the process, which can make it dangerous? (i don't
know much about fermentation, I wouldn't want to make metanol or whatever;))
Are there any  problems that might occur? I read somewhere about checking
the PH of the brewed process.

>> If it is not too hot which means over 30 degrees of celsius for longer periods of time (many days or week etc) you should be safe. You can look if there is not some fungal contamination (like on the marmelade) but I did not have any since I started to ferment which is many years ago so you should be fine. Once the mother grows it eliminates quite everything else and you can state the health of the mother by the thickness and quality of the cellulos - when you take it into your hand it should be compact and strong, not tearing appart easily.

Thanks!
Your sincerely
Fermentation Apprentice Slawomir.

>> I hope I helped you should have fun with your new pet, I'm now enjoying with water kefir grains! :-)

>> Sincerely from Jeju,

>> FAA

Pozdrawiam / Best Regards
--
Sławomir Jabs
PROIDEA Foundation
Conference Organizing Team

4Developers 2013: April, 12th, Warsaw, http://4developers.org.pl/
CONFidence 2013: May, 28-29th, Krakow, http://confidence.org.pl/
JDD 2013: October, 14-15th, Krakow, http://jdd.org.pl/

Mobile: +48506689591
E-mail: slawek.jabs at proidea.org.pl
www: http://proidea.org.pl/
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