Fermentaholics ORGANIC Kombucha SCOBY With Twelve Ounces of Starter Tea - Live Starter Culture - Makes A One Gallon Batch - 1.5 Cups of Strong Mature Starter Tea - Brew Your Own KombuchaUSDA Organic

Fantastic! Honestly I was skeptical of a "mail order scoby" but I'll be darned if it didn't work just perfectly for me :) I'd been off the booch brewing wagon long enough my scoby hotel had long since been vacated and I was literally starting from scratch. Today I drank my first glass of fresh picked strawberry flavored booch and wanted to leave feedback so others who might be hesitant, know that this is legit. Buy the scoby and make all the good 'booch.

This scoby is a gramma to many many scoby babies. I don't even know what to do with them! Lol

I have found the cheapest way to brew, high quality kombucha. Most of these items I got through Amazon. I will give you a list:1) The original scobys - Fermentaholics ORGANIC Kombucha SCOBY With Twelve Ounces of Starter Tea. I got two of these (with repeat brewing and division they've become six over a two month period).2) To maintain a proper brew temperature of 80 degrees - Ohuhu Seedling Heat Mat for Plants. I'm brewing six gallons at a time so I got eight of these. One goes around a gallon jug of water that I use as a control for the other six. I put a cap of bleach in the water to keep it clean and just refill with water as it evaporates. The eighth goes under the middle of the ceramic tile I have placed the bottles on. It warms the bottom of the Grolsch beer bottles I use for the second fermentation. I use large elastic hair ties to hold them against the jars.3) Ohuhu Digital Temperature Controller Seedling Heat Mat Thermostat - the probe goes into the gallon jar with water and that then controls the temperature in the other six brew jars.4) 12" SS Dial Thermometer Homebrewing Brew Kettle Brew Pot - this gives me an analog backup to the digital thermostat. You need to adjust it slightly with an 11mm wrench to that the two correspond exactly.5) HAUSPROFI Stainless Steel Funnel, 13cm 304 Stainless Steel Kitchen Funnel with 200 Mesh Food Filter Strainer - this works perfectly to transfer the brew from the gallon jars to the Grolsch bottles. I also use it (with a strainer on top) to remove the tea leaves from the initial steeped concentrate (I don't use tea bags - I use bulk black tea leaves and matcha)6) ZeroWater 20 Cup Ready-Pour Dispenser Water Filter Pitcher - I use this for my filtered water for the brew.7) 3-Outlet Grounding Adapter, Kasonic [UL Listed] Plug Extender, Heavy-Duty Grounded Power Tap - 3 Pack. I actually used four of these 3-outlet adapters plugged into each other and then the thermostat to control the current to all of the seedling mat heaters.8) Organic Veda Matcha Green Tea Powder - I use this for the green tea part of my brew. I also use black tea leaves in the same brew.9) BAERFO 304 Kitchen Ladle, Soup Ladle,Cooking Ladle for Soup（4ounce/13.5 Inch) - this fits perfectly in the gallon jars I'm using to remove the scoby after the first fermentation and a couple cups of started brew as well as ladling the mix of brew and pomegranate juice into the Grolsch bottles for my second fermentation.10) The cheapest way for me to get gallon glass jars was to buy the gallon pickle jars at WalMart. They cost less than $6 apiece and you get the pickles.I also use half-gallon Ball jars for collecting the filtered water and placing the sugar/tea mixture in to let it cool to room temperature. The first brew takes about ten days or so. I remove the scoby and the two cups of starter kombucha and place that in a glass dish. I then bring the gallon level back up with pomegranate juice. I mix that up and ladle into the Grolsch jars. The second fermentation takes two or three days but you must uncap the bottles every day or you'll have too much pressure build up in the bottles and they'll blow when you uncap them. You then put the bottles in the fridge and cool to enjoy. You make your new batch by pouring the filtered water and sugar/tea mixture into the gallon jar and topping it off with the two cups of liquid you've saved from the previous batch plus the scoby. You then affix a large paper coffee filter on top with a large hair tie or rubber band. After 8 to 10 days you are ready to repeat. I have a journal that I created in Excel to keep track of the brew stages. You can find plenty of YouTube videos offering brewing advice. This setup will generate enough brew to give you about half a gallon of kombucha a day. I process two gallons at a time every three days or so. I collected several dozen Grolsch bottles. You can also buy similar, reusable fliptop empties on Amazon.

This was a gift to my husband to launch his new kombucha hobby. Actually it was purchased as a replacement for a competitor’s scoby that failed. Fermentaholics scoby created a batch ready for bottling in 9 days, and a fizzy, great tasting kombucha in another 7 days. I’ll purchase from them again.

My first batch took it femented green tea the color like good no complexcations fementing. Was small but did the job have another scoby forming. On my second batch of femention

The product worked as expected—I was able to successfully brew my own batch of kombucha, which is great. However, I was concerned about the instructions on the label. It recommends using vinegar to adjust the pH level, but many reputable kombucha brewing sources specifically advise against using vinegar, as it can introduce unwanted bacteria or alter the flavor profile.This contradiction left me wondering whether the starter tea included with the product already contained vinegar. A little more transparency or clarification from the manufacturer would be really helpful here. Overall, it’s a decent starter, but the mixed messages around safe brewing practices are worth noting.

UPDATE 3/8/18: Still going strong. I'm swimming in extra scobys now. Very very healthy starter scoby from this seller, can't compliment this company enough on the high quality of their product. Since I wrote my original review, I've seen a lot of other people's scobys and they are UGLY. Very thin layers, stained dark brown, with gross black yeast strings, sitting in blackish brown liquid. SUPER gross looking. Fermentaholic's scoby is nothing like that - they are clean, healthy looking, creamy colored and thick. Mine doesn't make many yeast strings at all, just some sediment on the bottom. All my baby scobys have turned out to be beautiful and healthy looking as well, just follow the instructions included exactly. I've also read that using green tea instead of black tea helps keep your scoby from getting stained and becoming darker, so my typical mixture is 50/50 green tea and black tea (3 green tea bags, 3 black if you use the proportions in the instructions). However, my best batch yet was when I used 100% green tea (6 green tea bags) - it was pleasantly floral and sweet, with just a hint of tartness, not the aggressive sour and tannic flavor of typical kombucha. From my research, green tea works just as well as black for a scoby food source, and my scobys have been much prettier when I do batches with green tea, so try it!Last thing, I've been making so much kombucha that once in awhile I won't have time to refresh the liquid and a batch will ferment too long and become kombucha vinegar. It's not necessary to throw this out at all - there's tons of recipes online that substitute apple cider vinegar for kombucha vinegar, and I've found my over fermented kombucha to be super handy when I need vinegar in a pinch (ie. salad dressing). This may freak some people out, but I've even tried using my kombucha vinegar as a hair rinse (diluted down with cooled chamomile tea), and it worked amazingly as a clarifying shampoo and even took care of some flakes that I've been getting from the dry winter weather. If you have color treated hair, it will strip out your color. However, I really liked that my hair was so clean, volumized, and shiny the next day. I actually got several compliments about having a "hair model" day. For my method: Brew a cup of chamomile. Drink a third of the cup as you wait for it to cool. When cool, replace the third with your kombucha vinegar (1 part kombucha vinegar, 2 parts chamomile tea). After shampooing, dump this on your head, concentrating on the scalp (careful, it might get in your eyes and ears). Rinse well (I rinsed several times because I was afraid I'd smell like vinegar later). Condition as you would normally. While your hair is wet, the kombucha smell might follow you around, but it dissipated when it dried (I had several people smell me to confirm).Best of luck with your kombucha!! If you're buying it here, you made the right choice. I can confirm it's an excellent source.--------------------------Oh this worked out great!! I read the reviews here that said these scobys come with a full cup of the kombucha starter liquid so that when you add it into your gallon of sweet tea, it will end up the perfect ph (instead of you having to add vinegar in to adjust the ph like other kombucha sets on Amazon that don't come with enough of the liquid). As a first time kombucha brewer, I was willing to pay a little extra to ensure the ph was correct from the get go, and I'm happy to report back that this worked great. I highly recommend buying your scobys from here if you are a beginner like I was. Just to be safe, I did test the ph with some ph test strips and it was in the perfect range! Instructions are very clear and simple. My scoby was about the size of a hockey puck. I could actually see several layers already existing in the scoby I got in the mail and from what I read, I'm sure it was probably thick enough to separate the layers and give to a friend. I didn't since I was new at this and didn't want to mess with it. It definitely moved around in my gallon jug in the first week - some days floating on top, some days stuck to the bottom, some days drifting on it's side. You're dealing with something that's alive, people. Just let it do it's thing. After only one fermentation cycle, I saw the beginnings of a new scoby forming at the top of my jug so this culture does seem very healthy. I was impressed. My first batch tasted about right to bottle after about 10 days (I live in San Francisco so fermentation times might be longer since it's a little cooler here).