kombucha brings good things

So after every batch of kombucha you end up with scooby's or kombucha babies. The Salted Cod posted a free ad on craigslist, we ended up with over 20 people looking to start brewing kombucha themselves. When we met up with one fellow to pass on our kombucha babies we were pleasantly rewarded with some freshly picked blueberries!

Our friend did say kombucha brings good things when we first recieved our kombucha baby.

We made blueberry muffins with our new gift. We used a very simple recipe from Bittman's "How to Cook Everything." They came out great, we enjoyed them two ways. First straight up as pictured above.

We also whipped up a fresh blueberry compote. Our compote had a bit of fresh lemon juice to help cut the sweetness. The muffins were grilled old school diner style with our compote drizzled on top.

The Salted Cod would also like to take a minute to share some muffin humor.
Check out Cunninghams Muffins on youtube.

Kombucha!

The Salted Cod has come across a "scooby" or a baby Kombucha culture. Kombucha is a tea which is fermented by a colony of healthy Bactria's and yeasts. The colony can be seen floating on top of the tea here. The colony feeds off of the caffeine and sugar in the tea. The end result is an acidic slightly carbonated tea, reminiscent of apple cider vinegar.


Once you acquire your kombucha colony you will want to brew 1 gallon of strong black tea. While the tea is boiling, I add 1 cup of sugar to dissolve. This will be you kombucha colony’s lunch. I add 5 tea bags; I’ve had good luck with tazo black tea. After brewing is complete I cover the pot and let it sit overnight to bring it down to room temperature. The tea is then transferred to the glass jar. The kombucha colony is plopped in shinny side up to live in harmony with the sweet room temperature tea. The fermentation process usually takes around two weeks depending on how acid it you’d like it. I’ve had one batch go for a month and it still tasted great.

We then bottled this brew after 2 weeks of fermentation with some slices of ginger. We have this bottle chilling in the fridge where the flavors mellow out a bit. During this time it will gain some natural carbonation as well.

We've compared our brew to the popular GT's Kombucha which retails for $4.00 a bottle. Our home brew was actually quite comparable just a bit sweeter (and a hell of a lot cheaper.)

If you're in the Boston area The Salted Cod will be more than happy to hook you up with you're own scooby and more detailed instructions on how to brew your own.