What're you brewing right now?

[markaberrant]

my first batch is ready this sunday. i assume the 1st is a dumper.
we're starting plain and then adding fruit. kind of excited.

Yeah, it takes awhile to build up a healthy culture, no different than brewing beer really. I used an entire 500ml bottle of Budda's Brew plain kombucha from Austin, TX as the "starter." Made a couple 1L batches, just kept adding/feeding it, took 4-6 weeks to get it going. Then made a couple 1-2 gallon batches, and now I make 3-5 gallon batches and keep a keg going all the time.

I personally love the plain version. I use 2 tbsp/gallon of high quality black tea and 1 cup/gallon of unrefined sugar (usually demerara or coconut). Talk about dirt cheap and healthy. I get the right level of tartness with 10-14 days of fermentation.

I have started adding various fruits, primarily because that is what my wife likes. Want to try a hibiscus one soon as well. We got our parents and siblings hooked on it too, and 2 of my buddies got a culture from me and make their own now as well.

[J343MY]

2 beans in the secondary of a 5 gallon batch. It had to stand up to 8 oz. chocolate nibs and three cups of coffee.

I did the coffee by cold brewing it and only dumping the extract, not the grounds, into the secondary. If I were to do it again I would want more coffee.

Best way to add coffee is to coarsely grind some beans and toss in a hop bag/cheesecloth directly into a cold keg (I just leave them in there until the keg blows). Secondary would also work, probably only needs a couple days.

And use the best, freshest beans you can get. 4oz/5gallons is plenty, you may even want to cut back to 2oz to start with.

That was my original plan, but I read around on various forums and a bunch of people were pushing just adding cold brewed coffee instead, so I gave it a try. Next time I'll just toss the grounds in.

I usually do coarse ground coffee directly into the fermenter and leave it for 24 hours, then bottle or keg. Works really well for me.

[atomeyes]

my first batch is ready this sunday. i assume the 1st is a dumper.
we're starting plain and then adding fruit. kind of excited.

Yeah, it takes awhile to build up a healthy culture, no different than brewing beer really. I used an entire 500ml bottle of Budda's Brew plain kombucha from Austin, TX as the "starter." Made a couple 1L batches, just kept adding/feeding it, took 4-6 weeks to get it going. Then made a couple 1-2 gallon batches, and now I make 3-5 gallon batches and keep a keg going all the time.

I personally love the plain version. I use 2 tbsp/gallon of high quality black tea and 1 cup/gallon of unrefined sugar (usually demerara or coconut). Talk about dirt cheap and healthy. I get the right level of tartness with 10-14 days of fermentation.

I have started adding various fruits, primarily because that is what my wife likes. Want to try a hibiscus one soon as well. We got our parents and siblings hooked on it too, and 2 of my buddies got a culture from me and make their own now as well.

wait...you keg it and dispense it from your kegerator?
thought there was an issue of keeping kombucha in metal. or is that just the mother?

[markaberrant]

wait...you keg it and dispense it from your kegerator?
thought there was an issue of keeping kombucha in metal. or is that just the mother?

Sure, why not? No more acidic than a lambic.

I have been to lots of places in Denver and Austin that serve kombucha from a keg.

[atomeyes]

wait...you keg it and dispense it from your kegerator?
thought there was an issue of keeping kombucha in metal. or is that just the mother?

Sure, why not? No more acidic than a lambic.

I have been to lots of places in Denver and Austin that serve kombucha from a keg.

part of the golden rules of kombucha is to never let the mother ferment in anything metal or to touch it with anything metal. no idea why.

[J343MY]

Brewed and imperial stout today. I couldn't decide if I wanted to do coffee and vanilla, or chili peppers, chocolate & cinnamon. So I decided to do everything minus the cinnamon. Sort of along the lines of Prairie bomb. Won't be 14% though, I hope.

[markaberrant]

part of the golden rules of kombucha is to never let the mother ferment in anything metal or to touch it with anything metal. no idea why.

Well, I ferment in a plastic bucket. Most of the crap you read about kombucha sounds like it came out of a homebrewing book from the 70s or 80s.

[MetalHead]

Halfway through the boil of my Altbier.

[grub]

yeah, the "error" part of "trial and error" never excites me. don't want a frothy mess on my hands for the party, but your directions were a lot less volatile than the "rock and roll" one i'd used before.

how'd the beer turn out?

[Craig]

The vanilla in my stout faded a lot over the last few days. I had a few people try it over the weekend and they all said they got more coffee than anything else off of it. Just goes to show you really need to give it time to settle before drawing conclusions.

It got good reviews too, I'm pretty pleased. We had it as part of a night of sampling porters/stouts and I was told it compared favourably to the bottle of 8-ball we had right after it. I think that was partly because the 8-ball was much too cold, but it's still a nice boost to the old ego.

[atomeyes]

yeah, the "error" part of "trial and error" never excites me. don't want a frothy mess on my hands for the party, but your directions were a lot less volatile than the "rock and roll" one i'd used before.

how'd the beer turn out?

hilariously.

carbonation was great. tapped it at home.
took it to the party in the west end. set it up. turn on the CO2. attach the tap....
nothing.
re-jig it. attempt again. nothing coming out.
i vent the keg. co2 is going in fine. try again. nothing.
so maybe some trub was caught in the out pin? haven't had time to test the tap, but i can't see a tap not working, since it is a simple piece of equipment.

ended up venting the keg completely and pouring it from the top of the keg into a pitcher. also used a punch ladel to ladel beer. no one cared except my right arm was fucking killing me!

[icemachine]

Sounds like a clogged outlet. Connect CO2 to outlet and blast a little in to the keg next time

[grub]

Sounds like a clogged outlet. Connect CO2 to outlet and blast a little in to the keg next time

yeah, what he said - though in my experience, if it happens once, it's bound to happen again and you end up going back and forth to re-clear it each time. i've had better luck cranking up the PSI and trying to force whatever it was through - just be careful since when it lets go, it's gonna go! the extreme version of this involves venting the keg so there's no pressure, then slamming it with 25psi. sometimes helps get it moving.

even more fun when you're trying to jumper between two corny type connections. 2x poppits + 2x disconnects means once it's free from one, it might clog the other. i've had to go so far as removing the poppit from the kegs and the pin from the disconnects so it just flows with no obstructions.... had to cut a little more off the dip tube to use that particular fermenter in the future.

incidentally, this is why i prefer the disconnects with threads over those with built in barbs - much easier to swap the liquid disconnect onto your co2 kit and vice versa.

[atomeyes]

Sounds like a clogged outlet. Connect CO2 to outlet and blast a little in to the keg next time

I am a kegging noon. But I tried that and felt like the co2 input wouldn't fit on my soda keg output peg

[icemachine]

Sounds like a clogged outlet. Connect CO2 to outlet and blast a little in to the keg next time

I am a kegging noon. But I tried that and felt like the co2 input wouldn't fit on my soda keg output peg

It won't, they are different sizes (although not so different enough they can't be mistakenly forced on). That's why Grub commented on how he liked the threaded posts, rather than hose barb style.