Berry Booch

[Owly055]

My blackberry booch came out wonderfully well, not overpowering in flavor, and very tart, about like blackberry lemonade. Tap-a-Draft makes a great way to serve kombucha. The secondary fermentation consisted of half of what was in my primary, topped up with sweet tea, with a some blackberries cooked down and added. I secondary fermented it for a week. The procedure was to decant one gallon out of my two gallon primary into a 2 gallon secondary fermenter (identical), and top both up. In the week's secondary fermentation the flavor was well extracted from the blackberries, and my "purple scoby mountain" developed. Surprisingly it was pretty thick.

I've been removing both scobies completely, with every batch....... or every second batch, depending on development. I'm drying for my mother to use in here paper making hobby. They will be tossed in the blender and liquified, then the fiber will be scooped out with a screen and allowed to dry into paper which she will use in making books, which she hand writes with a calligraphy pen, and binds. At 83, you need some sort of hobby!

Just pulled my raspberry kombucha off secondary, and will soon pressure it up for serving......when I'm through with the blackberry. Made with raspberries from my own garden, and plenty of them, it's to die for!!


H.W.

 

[MeadWitch]

Your mother sounds like an awesome lady!

 

[ericbw]

I like to do it that way - ferment it, then dilute and backsweeten for the secondary ferment. Do the berries settle out? And then you rack to the Tap-a-draft?

I have kegs and a CO2 tank, so I have carbonated some in 1 liter bottles. It's easier and more consistent than trying to get fizzy from a secondary ferment.