Kombucha Malaysia

There are 2 well-known common enemies of SCOBY;  1. Mold 2. Fruit flies Both are equally harmful to any brew. Once a SCOBY had been infested with either one, it is best to dispose of the affected batch. On a macro level, fruit flies are the most harmful to any kombucha brew.  Fruit flies usually enter when the cover to your brewing case is not secured properly. Attracted by the fermented brew, fruit flies will usually lay their eggs on the culture itself and within a day or two you can see its larvae crawling on the SCOBY. It is not a pretty sight. To prevent this it is vital that the cloth covering the top of your brewing container has no holes/gaps and the sides are secured with strong bands allowing no gaps whatsoever for the adult fruit flies to enter the brew. On a micro level another equally harmful enemy to any SCOBY is the development of mold. There are many reasons why mold can develop. a. The Mother SCOBY is already old . b...

When I started to venture into kombucha brewing; it took me a while to find an ultimate guide book.  There was none in the bookshelf of major bookstores and when I surfed online I could not find a concise one-stop guide on kombucha. I finally found what I was looking for in a library. The book is titled, “Kombucha the Miracle Fungus, the essential handbook ”. Harald  who is a medical herbalist by profession , wrote this book back in 1994. It has everything you will ever need to know about kombucha from the origins, brewing methods and explanations on the health claims on kombucha. I highly recommend serious brewers to read this book.

There are Mother Scobys and there are virgin Scobys. What is the difference you ask? Mother Scobys are scobys that had been used at least once to brew kombucha while virgin Scobys are well, virgin in terms of kombucha brewing. Virgin Scoby will form when u brew kombucha using a Mother Scoby. It is the thin layer that slowly thickens until it forms a perfectly fresh layer of Scoby on top of the brew. The importance of virgin Scoby cannot be understated. Like every other living things, Scoby do age. After the sixth or seventh brew of with a Mother Scoby, the batch of kombucha made will start to taste flat. That means it is time to retire the Mother Scoby and start to brew using virgin scobies instead.  What does one do with a retired scoby? I usually return it to the soil in my garden. Some even feed their pets with retired Scobies.  So do remember to store your virgin Scobies as back up for each and every brew.

I get this question a lot when I meet people who are embarking on their first experience to brew kombucha. Does kombucha cure diabetes ? Kombucha is fermented tea. Through the process of fermentation, most of the sugar in the tea will be converted into organic acid. However, there is still some amount of sugar in kombucha. There is a line of thought suggesting that  over-brewed kombucha with very low sugar level might assist in diabetes due to the fact that the good bacterias in kombucha will help diabetes patient digest excessive sugar. In my humble opinion this is rather a weak argument and it is definitely best to consult a physician if a diabetes patient wants to consume kombucha. What about eczema? A mother approached me about the topic of eczema and kombucha and how she plans to brew kombucha to cure eczema for his child. It got me all interested on that topic. My first finding was a published article by the University of Maryland; the findings are rather o...