Cleaning the Kombucha

My kombucha has been left alone for a while ever since Gwen became ill.  While I did remove most of the vinegar and added fresh sweet tea, but this caused the yeast to build up.  I figured it was time to completely clean 2/4 of the containers and let it rebrew.  Below is my scoby hotel before cleaning.

While cleaning my scoby hotel.  I have quite a few scobies!

Completely cleaned and in fresh sweet tea.

 Below is my 2 gallon "mothership" kombucha continuous brew container after I removed my mothership scoby and scrubbed out the container.

 My mothership scoby after being cleaned and placed in fresh sweet tea.  This scoby is my largest and pride and joy.  I will be checking this brew in a week to see if it is ready for 2nd fermentation.  When you have such a large scoby, your kombucha brews much faster. 

Here is my mothership scoby below.  This scoby has been growing continuously for about 8 months.  

Below is my current kombucha set up.  From left to right: oolong tea kombucha, rooibos/black tea kombucha and my basic black tea kombucha.  My scoby hotel is on the second level.

And I am currently growing a few more smaller scobies to sell in my Etsy shop to help towards Lincs service dog equipment.

Buch

I have become a little obsessed with brewing kombucha.  It is a wonderful drink!  I have three different kinds of teas brewing, black, rooibos vanilla and oolong.

I did receive my other cloth covers for my 2.5 gallon and other 1 gallon continuous brews.

This is my newest experiment in brewing, Moroccan Mint.  I love the tea itself, we'll see how it turns out.  The base of Moroccan Mint is green tea, this is the only green tea I like.

I also now have a 2 gallon batch kombucha brewing.  it is made with my favorite rooibos vanilla tea.  I am seeing if there is a difference in flavor between the batch brew and the continuous brew.

Here is some of my kombucha with some Bolthouse berry juice added for second fermentation.  This is how it looks after second fermentation and refrigeration. 

I enjoyed some lobster tails broiled with sumac on them.  Sumac is my new favorite spice! This was sooo good!

Here is another version of my hopdoddy lamb burger.  Instead of using buns, I decided to try it with 2 toasted Rudi's small plain tortillas.

Yummy!!!

I found these awesome hotdogs at Trader Joe's! They are uncured and taste amazing!

This was my dinner tonight.  There is 5.2oz of grilled salmon on the bottom, underneath the grilled vegetables.  The grilled salmon and veggies are from Whole Foods.  The tortilla is a large Rudi's tortilla that I toasted.

For lunch and dinner tomorrow, I have a turkey breast in the crock pot with mushrooms and green onions.  That should be good! I haven't made a roasted turkey breast for a few weeks. 

Kombucha & 47.2lbs gone!

I thought I would start off with a wonderful quote from Dr. Seuss.

As I have mentioned before, I have started to brew my own kombucha.  Honestly, the process is quite addicting (in a good way). I had 3 gallon sized jars that I have been using to brew with.  But, I wanted something larger for my continuous brew.  I decided to buy a glass 2.5 gallon water dispenser.  It arrived today! I immediately put my two gallons of my continuous black tea brews in and made more to top it off.  I am extremely excited about having a much larger amount brewing all the time! I will still be using the 1gallon dispensers to brew more adventurous teas.  My basic two are black and rooibos vanilla.  Below on the left is my new 2.5g next to my rooibos 1g. So exciting!! I try to drink my homemade kombucha (16oz) a few times a week.  It has really made a difference when it comes to my digestion and ibs.  I love it!

In other news, I had to go a buy some new shirts! All of my old shirts are either too big or too big with holes in them.  Below is a recent photo of me wearing a new shirt from Old Navy.  I'm extremely excited that I am now able to shop in a "normal" store and no longer need plus size stores.

Here are some meals I've been eating.  Below is roasted cauliflower and Trader Joe's GF Battered Halibut (1.5 servings). The halibut is wonderful, but is a treat food and should only be eaten every so often. Moderation!

I also tried something new this week.  I made cucumber pasta! I used some of my home canned GF marinara sauce that I canned in August.  Not bad! Surprisingly very filling! I will be making this again.

In other news, my baby boy Mac has turned 8!!! I can't believe my puppy is 8 years old! Here he is waiting for the release command to enjoy a treat at the local dog bakery The Canine Crunchery.

We took home a small cake for him to enjoy the next day, which was his birthday, 04/05/14. Yes, Mac was born on 04/05/06.  How funny is that? This little carob cake was definitely enjoyed!

My nutritionist Sally has also posted a new healthy recipe on her blog Twellman Nutrition. I made it yesterday, but with grilled chicken tenders and it was a huge hit with my parents! I definitely suggest trying it!

Kombucha!!

Kombucha brewing. I bought a kit from KombuchaKamp. I started with a plain black tea sweet tea and added my mother scoby.

The main scoby worked beautifully, but so have my homemade ones I grew from locally made kombucha. The first batch is done and I added blackberries to it. The second batch was bottled tonight and I added fresh ginger to make gingerade. I LOVE ginger flavored kombucha. I have two others fermenting made with pumpkin chai tea, a regular black tea and going to make another batch of the lighter which I bottled another batch tonight.