Kombucha SCOBY in lieu of EC-1118 or Primmer Rouge

[SVEN]

I was exploring making kombucha primarily for its probiotic and organ-cleansing benefits.

Being comprised of water, black tea, sugar and a SCOBY. (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast).

Has anyone tried inoculating their wine, mead or cider with a home-made (or store-bought) SCOBY?

Some posts I have come across claim an improvement in the over-all aroma and flavor due to the variety of yeast and bacterial strains present in a SCOBY.

 

[SVEN]

Excuse me. PREMIER ROUGE.

Septenegarian fat/crippled fingers! ( and poor spell-checking skills!)

 

[franc1969]

I am not sure what you want from this- vinegar after making the wine? Adding a kombucha scoby would be an interesting alternate to a vinegar mother, not sure it would survive in the wine though. Mine makes a very acid drink, but I like tart. Held as a 'scoby hotel', I have used the liquid as a vinegar in salad dressings.
All of this stays well away from my wine - I am not interested in contamination.

 

[SVEN]

I was looking only to extract the gelatinous SCOBY from the kombucha liquid. This would serve as the "Yeast" for my ciders and meads. Was interested in what different flavors it may impart when compared to my usual Lalvin EC-1118 yeast protocol.

 

[franc1969]

Well, it might be an interesting experiment, but you'd be making vinegar, not wine. Kombucha always has some species of Acetobacter. There are so many unknown organisms in kombucha that you can't really predict what you'd get beyond that. Here's a web page with details of some of what bacteria / yeast is commonly found, but all cultures are different. Making kombucha at home, you can end up with varying levels of alcohol, but the culture itself consumes much of what it makes. Before regulation happened, some commercial products were getting 2 to 3% with the sugar given before the result was too acidic to drink. Certainly far from the 18% that 1118 yeast can produce.

 

[SVEN]

Thanks!!! Great website!

Looking at the various acid strains it appears I WILL be making vinegar!!! Not good. (I will try to refrain from posting moronic questions in the future!)

As you can see I am a kombucha neophyte. My grandkids were looking to me to synthesize something they could drink. (Not my meads, ciders and wines)

I will make a batch of kombucha and then go back to the "regular" fermentations.

 

[malfrune]

If it's for the kids throw some in grape juice and see what comes of it. Keep tasting it and you'll probably get a fruity kombucha type drink. Id be interested in hearing how it tastes.

 

[SVEN]

Sounds interesting. I will start the experiment once my SCOBY has "matured"....another 3-4 weeks.

 

[BernardSmith]

There is no such thing as a moronic question, Sven. There are perhaps moronic answers. That said, asking about whether the scoby in komutcha can ferment simple sugars to make a wine, is in my opinion a good question. But let me shift your thinking a few degrees - what about using water kefir grains? These certainly make alcohol although without some massaging from you they may quit when the alcohol is about 2 or 3 percent... but if most of the yeast quits at that low level it may be possible to encourage a few cells to survive at higher concentrations and if they survive , to thrive and if they thrive at higher concentrations to keep on encouraging those more robust cells to strive for higher concentrations of alcohol. After all, isn't that what we do with indigenous yeast (wild yeast)?

 

[SVEN]

Water kefir grains....hmmmm. I have not explored the use of these. I believe they are used for producing carbonated, probiotic beverages. Will have to design an experiment for use in producing alcoholic beverages. I am quite immersed in high alcohol, 14-16% ABV, meads and ciders. Thanks for the tip....always something new to pursue!

 

[ljewels4u]

Interested ...
I currently make all 3 probiotics.
And have a batch of hard kombucha..in 2ndary now.
Will see how that turns out ..
I took kombucha added sugar to og of 1.04. +/- and added activated champagne yeast.. had a hard time starting..fermentation...

Ps probably will kill ur grains or scoby so use excess one if u try it out..
Might be a good way to bring ph down lol

 

[SVEN]

Anxious to hear how your hard kombucha turns out-->ABV, pH, T.A. Thanks!

 

[ljewels4u]

hi Sven I had a horrible time getting started began 1/10/20. make sure have temp higher & yeast activated and acclimated to booch when adding with yeast nutrient // racked 1/27 & 3/14

total volume 5G down to 4G after alot of lees and 2 rackings

all homemade kombucha some already in 2f some just done with 1F added sugar to OG

had to really heat it up to get fermenting!

OG 1.043 / ph 3.3 / FG .998 -- abv estimate is 5.91

will wait and keep racking not sure when to add fruits for 2F probably when I bottle it like I normally do - I use 1 and 2L plastic soda bottles for my kombucha so I can see and feel carbonation w/o bottle bombs

 

[SVEN]

Plastic bottles....good idea.

I will adopt 1 or 2 plastic 'control' bottles to assess the degree of CO2 generation. When the bottle becomes hard I will degassing it along with the rest of the snap-cap glass bottles.