Kombucha... Absolutely no flavoring in first ferment?

[Benjamyno]

I'm looking to brew kombucha for the first time. Can you not add any type of flavoring at all during the first ferment? I just want to do something that's typically found in teabags, not anything like fruit that can go rancid. I want to steep lemongrass and ground ginger along with the black tea... Will that not get me good results? Do I really have to wait on the lemongrass and ginger until after the scoby is out and I'm doing a second ferment?

 

[ScobeyDoo]

Sometimes people put some flavorings in on the first ferment with luck but a lot of the times it can be bad for the longevity of the scobey in the long run. It's safer to do the flavoring after the first ferment.

 

[Benjamyno]

Thanks. So I'm seeing that you can't let metal come in contact with your kombucha. Except, some sources say, stainless steel. Which I find kind of strange because what food grade metal is not stainless steel? If stainless steel is okay, everybody doesn't really need to say no metal because all cooking utensils made of metal are stainless steel.

But anyway... When I'm doing my second ferment, can I put my lemongrass and ginger in a stainless steel tea ball/infuser? Can I use my bulk teabags? (Food grade paper, and string.) Or will both of these interfere with the second ferment?

 

[hottpeper13]

Most of us do our second ferment in the package we are pouring from. For me that means at bottling time.

 

[Benjamyno]

That would be because you either are not flavoring, or you are flavoring with something edible, like fruit. You wouldn't if you were steeping lemongrass and ginger, would you? Something you have to take out. That wouldn't be very efficient to steep in all of the bottles instead of a large vessel.

 

[thebuchaman]

Typically, the teas you use during your first ferment is how your going to determine your buchas flavor. I've made two batches of bucha using the same exact 2nd ferment flavoring recipes, same times and temps, sugars, ect, but with different tea ratios and mixtures during 1F, and ended up with two products with significantly different tastes.

 

[pvpeacock]

I ferment in a 3.5 gallon stainless steel brew bucket. see: 3.5 gal | Brew Bucket Mini After it ferments to the sour taste I am looking for, I remove the scoby(ies) and approx. 2 quarts of kombucha and store those in a separate container. I then add fruit, spices or whatever flavoring I want into the fermenting bucket. When that is done, I keg it (in a stainless steel keg), carbonate it. I then make a new batch of sweet tea, put it in the fermenter and add the scoby and 2 quarts of kombucha for the next batch.