Let's Talk About SCOBYs

This is my jun SCOBY hotel. There was 1 SCOBY in it when I sealed it. The jar obviously didn’t seal properly, or it would not have filled up with them. I did not notice this until the deed was done, so to speak.

This post is happening because kombucha is flying off the shelves right now and we’ve gotten a lot of emails about how constantly out of starter tea with SCOBY we’ve been lately. We’re sorry about the SCOBYs; they take a long time to make. There is, however, good news!

YOU DO NOT NEED A SCOBY TO MAKE KOMBUCHA

Kombucha’s starter culture is the unpasteurized fermented tea. The SCOBY, bio-film, or pellicle, is a byproduct of fermentation. These happen in a lot of different cultures. I’ve even seen them in long-aged krauts! Don’t ask me why I ferment mine long enough for that to happen, because it’s not on purpose. Sometimes I just forget there’s a jar of this or that tucked way back in the pantry; it took me longer than I care to admit to understand that this was what was happening instead of a weird kahm mat that didn’t actually look like kahm..

Anyway, they can/do happen with beer and wine, definitely happen with all vinegars (we call them mothers-of-vinegar instead of SCOBY), happens occasionally with kimchi even. In a brewhouse, a SCOBY is viewed as a contaminant or potential source of spoilage, not as a beneficial visitor, because it’s a visual sign you may be making vinegar soon instead of what you actually wanted. Me personally? Most of the ales and beers I make are really for vinegar even though Ross thinks they’re really for him. In practice, they’re really for him, as you’d expect.

So what does it do?

What the SCOBY does do, other than compost well and make stellar vegan jerky, is protect the culture. That’s its actual purpose. It’s not meant to run fermentation. In fact, the primary bacteria and yeast responsible for SCOBY formation are protective, mainly dealing with salt and sugar tolerances rather than the microbes being used for the fermentation process.

The SCOBY puts a literal barrier between the brew and external features such as dust and bugs. Moreover, it protects the brew from extreme heat, some radiation, and so forth. It has a job. It’s just not the job we popularly believe SCOBYs have.

But can it still make kombucha?

Yes. Will you regret trying it with just the SCOBY itself and no starter tea? Yes, unless you have the patience of a saint. It takes months. I know this because I received, as a gift from a friend in Portugal, a very special shipment with starter tea and a SCOBY. Unfortunately, the various postal services were not particularly kind to my package, and the starter tea all leaked out. There were really just drops in there, since I felt it might be unwise to squeeze the starter tea from the box it all came in.

When I finally decided to put the SCOBY to work in hopes it would work, it took 3 months before I could even tell fermentation was happening. 4 before I accepted it as fermented, and 5 months before it was properly kombucha. I made another batch with just the tea, because as you can imagine I was worried that I had done something wrong. That batch was normal; 1 week to ferment, a second to strengthen.

Know also that if you choose to brew with SCOBY only and no starter tea at any point in your fermenting journey, keep a close eye out for mold. It’s more common if you don’t have starter tea because it’s difficult to get the pH low enough to inhibit unsavory visitors.

Is there benefit to buying starter culture with SCOBY?

Yes, but only in one instance. If you are of the disposition where you truly love/need that initial visual marker so you can watch it grow and sink and dance and so forth, get the culture with the SCOBY. It’s worth the extra $5 to give you peace of mind that things are happening.

Note also that if you buy starter tea with SCOBY, that SCOBY isn’t going to get bigger. It will grow a new one on top of it as part of a mat. Some people are concerned that the diameter of the purchased SCOBY doesn’t change, but that’s normal. It’s the thickness that changes.

If you do not need a visual marker? You’re wasting the $5 on something you will eventually be overrun by anyway. SCOBYs really do like making more SCOBYs; it’s their thing. Most kombucha lovers will complain about all the hotels and inability to get rid of them, too, because for reasons I don’t understand they always keep the SCOBYs. I once brought water kefir grains to all my students who wanted them during a summer class. There was one young woman who brewed kombucha, and she begged people to take SCOBYs off her hands. She did continuous brew and was no longer sure how deep the mat was. She seemed hesitant to investigate, which is hard to blame her for!

Those of you this applies to? Jerky. It’s quite tasty. I know that because I was sent some by a different friend, and it’s the only thing related to kombucha I’ve ever liked. It’s the only reason I have kombucha or jun in my house still. I personally think the jun jerky is tastier than the kombucha (ditto the jun tea v. kombucha tea), but I also haven’t started added chiles and other fun spices to mine yet. I just do a straight maple syrup soak, though maple and bourbon will be happening soon since I have a massive collection of jun SCOBYs from an improperly sealed hotel.

Can I stop them from growing if I don’t like them?

Only if you stop making kombucha. But, if you seal your hotel well, it’ll stop making new babies. Kombucha, as you know, is an aerobic fermentation process, so it won’t ferment without air.

If you really just want them out and don’t want to make jerky, I do recommend composting them. That could even take the form of “tossed some SCOBYs in the garden; hope it goes well!” Not proper compost if you’re doing that, but in my experience it does get the job done.

Why are you out of SCOBYs but not out of starter tea these days?

We make the SCOBYs separately. I cannot speak with any authority as to whether or not other probiotics companies grow theirs separately too, but I would truly be shocked if it weren’t the case. SCOBYs really do take a long time to make in the nice, tight, compact, dense mats people would like to have show up in their mailboxes. We consequently produce much larger volumes of starter tea than SCOBYs based on how the fermentation process actually works for SCOBY production, while Sabrina has jars and jars all over hell and back of SCOBYs being nurtured and grown. This is why I’m glad that I get to do the writing: her job seems really hard to me! When we’re still growing more and have run out of the ones we’ve got, you see temporary out of stock notices for those even though we still have plenty of starter culture to ship!

Why are you always yammering on about the pointlessness of SCOBY fixation?

Mainly because I feel like everyone has bought into some nonsense, and I am too fact-based of a thinker to be cool with people making uninformed decisions. Especially when it’s costing the person more money to not have the info. And even more especially when it harms people’s understanding of what’s happening in their jars. Sabrina concurs. You would be surprised by how many meeting we have about this. I am always surprised whenever we have another one, even though it’s usually me that causes it. Thankfully, our meetings involve about 5-10 minutes of actual meeting and then another hour of kid talk, unpacking loved TV shows and books, and so forth. I feel for y’all who’re stuck in those long meetings that really are meetings.

What do you guys recommend we do, moving forward?

We recommend that you do whatever you want. If you like SCOBYs, revel in them. If you don’t, now you know for sure that they aren’t needed. Education is basically what we’re after, not micromanaging y’all’s lives. What we prefer for you to do is save yourself the 5 bucks and grow your own. That said, we’re not going to tell you know if you want to throw that extra $5 our way.