The following recipes, adapted from Mary Izett’s Speed Brewing: Techniques and Recipes for Fast-Fermenting Beers, Ciders, Meads, and More, make a great starting point for experimenting with kombucha fermentations.
For more about brewing tasty kombucha at home—hard or not—see Mother’s Home! Bring on the Booch.
Kombucha Base
Batch size: 1 gallon (3.8 liters)
INGREDIENTS
1 gallon (3.8 liters) spring water or filtered, dechlorinated water
6 regular tea bags or 0.4 oz (12 g) loose-leaf tea
1 cup (237 ml) white sugar
1 cup (237 ml) kombucha from previous batch, or 2 Tbs (30 ml) white vinegar
1 kombucha SCOBY
DIRECTIONS
Boil 2 cups (473 ml) of water, pour over the tea/tea bags, and steep for 15–20 minutes. Remove the tea and stir in the sugar to dissolve. Add 2–4 cups (473–946 ml) water to cool the mixture below 85°F (29°C). Add this sweetened tea to a clean, sanitized, wide-mouth gallon (3.8 l) mason jar, along with the cup of previous kombucha or vinegar. (This drops the pH and discourages mold.) Then top up the jar with water, leaving enough room to float the SCOBY on top. Secure some fabric over the top of the jar with a rubber band and ferment at about 68°F (20°C) somewhere out of the sunlight.
The Fruity Boozy Booch (i.e., Hard Kombucha)
Batch size: 1 gallon (3.8 liters)
INGREDIENTS
1 cup (237 ml) fresh or frozen fruit, such as tart cherries
1 gallon (3.8 l) fermented kombucha
½ cup (118 ml) sugar
YEAST
2.5 g (half-packet) dried champagne yeast
1 tsp Go-Ferm
1/16 tsp yeast nutrient
DIRECTIONS
Rehydrate the champagne yeast with Go-Ferm in approximately 104°F (40°C) water for 20 minutes. Add the fresh or thawed fruit to a clean, sanitized wide-mouth gallon (3.8 l) mason jar.
From the fermented kombucha, set aside the SCOBY and save 1 cup (237 ml) kombucha for the next batch. Strain the rest of the finished kombucha into the fruit jar. Add the yeast nutrient and sugar. Pitch the yeast and ferment for 7–14 days. Bottle and enjoy.