Yesterday we finally tasted the weed berry booch and it honestly wasn’t what we expected. Despite having only added berries and cannabis leaves, my once tart brew was sweet like a juice. It’s something we find interesting and plan to experiment further, but as it stands as far as flavor is concerned it’s a success. It had a complexity that was certainly from the cannabis and the sweetness was interesting. The other brews were sweeter in general this time as well and I’m wondering if that has anything to do with having cleaned my containers.
The photo above shows an 8 day old scoby as it stands today, which is fairly impressive compared to the scobies I’d grown in the past. I also noticed better growth in my smaller containers as well. I used green tea in the small and black tea in the large, so the photos you’re seeing of just scoby are with black tea. There’s also a much lighter taste due to the cleaning of the containers which I find fascinating.
It’s been an interesting experience expanding my operation, as you can only expand as fast as the scoby can grow. There are things you can do to encourage expansion like splitting scobies and sacrificing brew to turn into starter. I’ve tried all sorts of methods and I’m to a point where I have 2 large 2 gallon brews and 5 small quart brews. I also now have a jar of kombucha vinegar which was done on purpose and a scoby hotel I keep away from my brew. It’s currently a scoby farm that I’m just not harvesting. I add tea every two months and the scobies grow while I live my life.
We tried several new flavors this time around, some I was impressed with some I wasn’t:
Strawberry Blueberry: sweeter than expected but could be due to several things, like cleaning of the vessel and the combination of the berries
Strawberry Blueberry with Cannabis leaves (Lovingly dubbed weed berry booch): much sweeter than expected, lost most of the fizz when refrigerated which usually isn’t an issue for me.
Strawberry Cacao:disappointing. I said something along the lines of “it tastes like someone put dirt in the booch” and it does have an earthy tone which is a bit unsettling for my taste pallet. I won’t say not to do it, but I won’t be doing it again unless people ask me to.
Here’s a list of my favorite flavors I have tried so far. To flavor my booch, I put chopped fruit fresh or frozen into the pressure rated flip top bottle, then I fill to the top with kombucha. I don’t add sugar, but I do occasionally add things like cinnamon or ginger:
Blueberry
Cherry
Pineapple
Pineapple cherry
Blueberry Cherry
Apple Cinnamon
Strawberry
Apple Ginger
The experimentation continues and I’m still drinking booch throughout the days. It still settles my stomach when it’s upset and even settles digestive upset for me. It’s still a daily changing journey for both my brew and my body so I’m not really ready to give the definitive update on that fact. I will say it’s helping and that I’m excited to see at which point things start to level off for me in that regard. Stay tuned for that update!
If you’re on the fence about brewing, don’t be scared. You don’t need to buy a scoby if you’ve got access to original flavor storebought kombucha. There are many support groups on facebook dedicated to helping brewers old and new with their adventures. I can answer questions as well as I’ve done a good job absorbing and organizing the knowledge I’ve learned about this brew. Just get started and see what happens!
Thanks for following and supporting us, until next time!
Wow, this is another great post by you Lily. So colourful and I was happy to hear about the benefits you are seeing, near the end of your post!!
Nice work as always sister.
Thanks for the comment, I'm excited to see the full scope of kombucha benefits.
This post received a 79% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @kennyskitchen! For more information, click here!
So happy you've still got the kombucha going!
I bought this random whale vote for your post as part of what I am now calling #payitforward, where I'm sending new people (and posts that I really enjoy) @randowhale votes and trying to inspire others to do the same :-)
got all my stuff to begin trying to grow my own scoby. I have been holding out because Im on a well. and wasn't sure if well water was safe..with all the minerals..but compared to fluoride city water it couldn't be better in my mind....how was the effects with marijuana leaves? great post. thanks.
I didn't use them for any psychoactive effects, they were just fan leaves with no trichomes. That being said it added an interesting sweetness to the brew. As for starting your own, do you drink your well water? Is it high in minerals? Those can degrade a scoby after time, things like iron ect. If your water is super mineral rich, just buy reverse osmosis bottled water or something to that effect.
I know some people are on really nice wells that are actually better than what you get in a bottle
I am on a very lovely well..drink, bathe and cook with it...and actually reverse osmosis seems like a down grade..I did question the mineral effect..but I won't know until I try..thanks for the reply.
I've seen many posts from people in my kombucha groups of people that have used high quality well water for years, sometimes like 20 years with no problems. So go ahead and try! If you get no mold and good scoby production, there's no issue! If you notice you're having issues forming the scoby it might have too much minerals and metals in it. Irons a bad one for scobies, that's why people advise against using molasses or brown sugar
thank you for your reply..it will be very useful in this process..I was going to use coconut sugar. I have instead decided to stick the organic cane sugar...fingers crossed
Of the alternative sugars, that's one of the ones people have okay success with. When they do use it they generally substitute with white every couple of brews for the scoby. I would start trying to grow the scoby in the white sugar, preferable cane if you can
Organic Cane sugar will be used to start to grow the scoby..once I can get one to actually grow..I will experiment. thanks again
What I do is use 1/3 alternative sugar (jaggery for me), 2/3 cane sugar in every brew. Earlier on I used more jaggery but found it caused a yeast dominant brew and slow fermentation. Jaggery is too high in minerals to use 100%, but I've found 1/3 jaggery works well and gives a nice caramel note. Apparently the culture adapts to different food over time, thats why you need to introduce certain ingredients gradually (like how some people wean the brew onto white tea). In my understanding, its best to use similar ingredients for each brew, so that the food is well matched to the bacteria in the starter liquid.
OMG this looks like the most wonderful drink in the world!! ;)
kombucha is soooo good, and good for you!
Interesting post!
Keep Rockin ! "The soft drink Queen of Acapulco" Get DOWN Hon !!! /hugs
Read More, Reason More ... JTS
The fruit you put is enough not to require added sugar? Nice.
Also, what a difference that camera makes. 👍
Indeed, such a difference. I don't add any sugar and it's generally both sweet and tart.
Great post - thanks for sharing. My favourite second ferments are anything with Cherry! Only problem is I can never get the timing right.. I am frequently cleaning my ceiling! Hubby has to open them outside now. Cherry is the only one I have that super fizzy problem with. Have to try some of your combos. I have a continuous brew going... ready to pull some bottles - have not tried frozen fruit so as it's winter might give that a go. We've replaced our nightly wine on a weeknight with booch - in an effort to be healthy! My favourite drink is now is my Raspberry Booch "mojito".
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