Many people are interested in brewing kombucha, but have a hard time finding a source for a scoby (mother, mushroom...they are the same thing). Here's how to do it without spending a fortune!
Buy a 12 oz bottle of prepared Kombucha tea from a health food store.
Prepare the sweet black tea as follows: Boil just less than a gallon of water, pour into a gallon size jar, add 2 cups white sugar (do not use anything like honey, or succanat, etc), add four Lipton black tea bags.
Steep tea fifteen minutes. Remove tea bags and discard.
Let tea cool to room temperature.
Pour in the entire bottle of kombucha.
Cover with a clean, thin cloth and secure with a rubber band. Let culture undisturbed about 2 weeks. Then you should have a mother on top and the tea should be ready to strain and enjoy!
Keep back 2 cups of the tea to add to your next gallon of sweet tea, along with the mother, of course. The next brew only needs to be 7-8 days long.
I was given my first SCOBY from a friend who made KT. Using an established SCOBY is definitely a better choice, but for those who can not afford to buy one, or who can't find one any other way, this is a way to get started! Thanks for adding your experience, though!
I had no idea you could start it this way...that's really great to know! We drank our first kombucha a few days ago and are going to try the continual brew method...I was so scared of the kombucha at first, we never tried it for a month and I just kept making new batches, never sure if they were "alright"...wow, you really have a lot brewing :) I just use one cup of sugar per gallon...wonder if using two would help?
OK...so I'm about a week in and I have a small something growing on the top (maybe a TBSP size) and it looks like something perhaps growing on the bottom. do either of these sound promising to you? :)
Sounds good. Pretty soon it will get thicker and more gelatinous. It will have brown stringy lines of yeast hanging from the bottom of it and/or pooled at the bottom of the jar.
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Posted by Mommaofmany 
• Sep. 27, 2008 - Making Kombucha
I now have Kombucha brewing all the time and my family loves it.
I got my culture here:
http://www.crazyfortea.com/kombuchaculture.html
It was a really nice thick scoby.