More on Kombucha

I first had kombucha at the amazing Wise Woman Center in Woodstock NY run by the indefatigable Susun Weed. There on the counter was a bucket with this evil looking blob floating in a brown liquid that smelled like vinegar. I thought it was a vinegar mother, the bacteria colony that makes vinegar. But a sign said kombucha. I wondered what kind of cha, or tea in Japanese, could be made from Kombu, a type of seaweed. I sure didn't see anything it that murk that looked like kombu. Susun said it was not kombu but a fermented tea of Red Raspberry leaf and spearmint. It was a thing handed down from grandmother to daughter for at least the last 1000 years and it was good for the gut and the immune system. I could attest that it looked handed down for a thousand years. It was spooky looking. There was this huge, flat pancake looking thing floating in liquid surrounded by tiny bubbles. "Have a sip" she said. I'm not one to shrink away from a challenge and I have always said I'd try any food so long as it was not alive going down my throat, so I said "ok." This batch was aged so it was vinegary. Not unpleasant, just sharp and ever so slightly effervescent. I enjoyed it. On my departure from the center 6 weeks later I was armed with a baby kombucha mother and some Tara grains. More on that later. I kept brewing the kombucha tea at my home. Each batch made a new colony that I gave to friends and co workers at the pharmacy I worked for. One day I got a call at work from the local newspaper. The reporter had heard I was making this weird brew that some folks were calling a health miracle. She wanted to see it and interview me. I made no claims that this stuff was a health tonic. I have always asserted that it was a tasty self replicating brew that has been around for at least 1000 years. This was 1995. I got in the paper and became know as the kombucha woman at the Pharmacy. The next year I moved from WI where I was living to MD then to TX and I gave up my beloved Kombucha. There was no way I could keep up with the upkeep the brew needed in my new living situation. Besides, the FDA was telling folks that Kombucha was dangerous. I knew that it was not dangerous if you didn't drink gallons of it at a time. Moderation. But anyway, my circumstances prevented me from brewing it for the next 16 years.
 Imagine my surprise when I saw a bottle of GT Kombucha in the local Whole Foods store in about 2009. I laughed at the price but bought a bottle anyway because I had no idea where to get a mother to brew my own. The GT stuff was good but I liked my stuff better. Then there was a crackdown in 2010. Somehow the word got out that Kombucha was alcoholic. It is fermented but it is not alcoholic, it ferments to Acetic acid, not alcohol in more than .5-,8%, no more than fruit juice sitting in the fridge for a week. After the kerfuffle died down, Kombucha was available in the store but I refused to pay the exorbitant prices for it. In 2014 I finally got in a position to brew my own stuff again. I bought a bottle of the store bought kombucha, forever hereafter known as booch, and let it sit out for a week until a SCOBY or mother grew on it and then fermented my own batch of green tea kombucha. It was like seeing an old friend. I liked the taste but looking online showed me that folks were doing all sorts of cool things with their kombucha brews. There was a second fermentation revolution going on and flavors I couldn't imagine were being created. By adding fruit or spices and herbs to the 2nd fermentation of Kombucha, amazing flavors where being produced. Since Kombucha was always about the taste first and the gut soothing properites of the brew second I was in hog heaven. This opened up a vast new arena with which I could play! And play I have! So far I have only made 2 flavored brews but I have so many ideas floating in my head. Here are pix of my latest creations, truly weird shit in jars.

 

Kombucha is made very easily once you have gotten a SCOBY or Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. You can google these online, get them from Ebay or get them from a friend. Then you make a super sweet tea solution, add the SCOBY, then wait. It takes about 7-14 days for the SCOBY to ferment the brew. I start tasting around day 6 so it does not get too vinegary. Then I pull off all but 2 C into other bottles. The plain stuff goes right into the fridge. The flavored stuff gets put into bottles( smaller re-used GT bottles) and then sits out for 2 more days then goes into the fridge. When the stuff is cooled off I drink it. Happy tummy and tongue happen.

Kombucha basic recipe

16 C water

2-3T black tea

1C white sugar

2c pre-existing kombucha 

1 SCOBY

gallon jar w spigot (or not)

coffee filter 

rubber band

Boil the water, put tea & sugar in a container. ( I use a plastic gallon pitcher from Walmart to brew). add hot water and let steep for at least 10 min. I let my stuff sit until the water is room temp. If you can't boil the full 16 cups at once boil what you can then fill the rest of the way with cool water to make 16 cups water total. Let this come to room temp. Strain and  Pour into  brew jug. Add SCOBY and pre-existing kombucha tea. Cover with coffee filter and secure with a rubber band to keep fruit flies and other nasties out. Let sit 7-14 days, Start tasting on day 6 so you can see when you like the taste. Decant into a jar and sit in the fridge. Drink 4-10 oz a day or as desired.

For 2nd fermantation, get smaller bottles. Put fruit or herbs or spices in bottles. fill with Kombucha, let sit at room temp for up to 48 more hours then refirdgerate. Twist open the tops of the bottles every 12 or so hours so that the gas does not build up and explode the jars.

Kombucha and Kefir after the move.

Well, I'm back after our move from Dallas to Allen TX. I'm happy to report that all the weird shit I had in jars made the move without incident. Storage in this house is more limited than in the old house so I am still figuring out the best place to store my stash. Since my last post I have made several herbal oils, some Motherwort tincture and Kombucha and Kefir.

First, here is a plantain oil steeping away. This is fresh plantain leaves (Plantago Major) I bought from Pacific Botanicals steeped in olive oil I got from Costco. This will be great for the itchies I get on my back and bug bites and ant bites we get down here in Texas. It is also really wonderful to soothe the itch of haemorroids.

Next up  I have Fresh Motherwort in 100 Proof alcohol. I don't have Motherwort ( Leonurus Cardiaca) growing near me so again I purchased mine from Pacific Botanicals . This tincture is a heart supportive, anxiety calming wonder elixir. I use the flowering tops and upper stalks and let them steep for at least 6 weeks. Then I'll bottle this up and use like Rescue Remedy for anxiety. All the members of my household suffer from excessive anxiety from time to time so I am really happy to have this plant at my disposal.

My most recent exploits have been making Kombucha tea and milk kefir again. I first had both of these funky foods at The Wise Woman Center run by the amazing Susun Weed in 1994. Kombucha is a effervescent drink made by fermenting sweetened tea using this nasty looking blobby thing called a SCOBY or Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeasts. You put this other-worldly looking thing in a sweet tea solution and let it sit for about a week or two then begin to drink it. The Scoby ferments the sugar and you get this fizzy, sweet or vinegary drink that is full of great probiotic buggies to help one's gut  live a happy life.  It is fun to make this brew but you do need a scoby to get started. I couldn't find anyone locally who had a scoby to share so I went to Whole Foods and bought a bottle of kombucha and left it out for a week and it grew a tiny Scoby that I then used to ferment a batch of sweet green tea. I have always had my kombucha flavored like the tea used to brew it but this time I'm going to experiment with flavoring my kombucha with fruits and other things for the family to enjoy. As I don't want any extra sugars I'll probably stick with the plain stuff. The others have better functioning pancreas' than I do. The great thing about the kombucha Scoby is it is self replicating so it will last for years if you take good care of it.

 The other thing in jars I have is Kefir. Kefir is another probiotic food that is gaining in popularity in mainstream America. My 16 yr old likes the stuff we can get at Whole Foods. It is a tart, fermented milk product like a runny yogurt that can be flavored, made into a cheese, added to smoothies or just drunk plain. Kefir is fermented by these little blobbies called kefir grains. They get added to milk and let to sit at room temp for 24 hours and Bam, you have a mild Kefir drink. If these ferments interest you, check out some of the many video's on Youtube about both the Kefir and Kombucha. There are lots out there. I don't have a favorite one to recommend, I just see that the process is about the same for all the vid's and both products are very easy to maintain and cost effective and yummy!

Weekend's work.

I was a busy bee this weekend. My rose tinctures were all ready to decant and several other things called out to be tinctured. What you see pictured above from left to right is tumeric tincture, Almond liquor sweetened with Swerve, Slippery Elm Balls and capsules, my Dram d'Amour numero Neun sweetened with sugar and Hibiscus tincture/vodka.

My Dram d'Amour Numero Neun was a big hit at a party I attended over the weekend. This is designed as a love potion intended to enhance sensual experiences. I don't know if that was the case but everyone loved the taste of the potion. It was described as a chocolate covered cherry with a flowery punch at the end. 

Another drink oriented potion I put up this weekend is this Almond liquor sweetened with Swerve. This is going to be for cocktails and sipping instead of strictly medicinal use. Behind the almond brew is a Tumeric tincture. This will be medicine. I'm  new to Tumeric. There were these pretty roots at the store yesterday and I knew that tumeric has medicinal properties including helping reduce inflammation and aches and pains related to arthritis and some positive effect on ones heart so I thought, Why not tincture it? I look forward to learning about this pretty plant in the future.

 Here we have some chamomile preparations. The top pix is of a chamomile liquor with honey, chamomile and lemon peel. I'm interested to see how this tastes in about a week. Below is a straight chamomile tincture. I'm looking forward to the gentle, calming effects of this tincture as my family get ready for a big house move.

One Habenero pepper with seeds in here. Steeped until it hurts. In this case steeped 2 days. This is going to be part of my Atomic Margaritas.

This beauty is dried hibiscus in 50% alc. I've left this unsweetened so I can use it in cocktails and explore any of it's medicinal potential. Hibiscus is used as a cooling drink in tropical areas so a tropical cocktail would be medicinal in Dallas TX in July, right?

And these are slippery elm balls, a combination of slippery elm bark powder and honey mixed into a dough and rolled into balls. After I made them into balls I rolled some in more slippery elm powder and some in cocoa powder. These are going to be used by the whole family for soothing sore throats and my favorite use, soothing stomach upsets. I get reflux sometimes and I don't want to use a proton pump inhibitor or other acid inhibitor so I use these babys to sop up the excess acid in my gut and keep it out of my esophagus. My man uses them to calm his very nervous tummy. I like Slippery elm because it stops up those that runneth and makes move those that are stopped up.

Well that's what was going on here this past weekend. What's up with you?

Hawthorn!

My dried hawthorn berries came in the mail today, so natch, I put some in jars. The berries were smaller than I expected and had a forest-like, woody smell to them. I put up a Qt of  tincture which should last me and my man quite some time.

Then I decided to make some hawthorn syrup. I put about a cup of berries in 3 C water and set them to boil then turned them down to a simmer

As the berries were simmering away Kevin called to me from the other room," The neighbors must be smoking weed on their porch!" Then he came into the kitchen to see what I was up to and walked past the stove and exclaimed," So that's what it is. I should have known." I must admit that the simmering hawthorn berries did smell a tich canabinal. After the liquid had reduced by what I thought was half I strained the liquid into a measuring cup to find it had reduced to 6oz. Oops. Oh well, no real harm done. I then added 2 oz by weight of Swerve sweetener. Ok, take a deep breath here. I know Swerve is not "Natural" and most will object to it's addition to a herbal remedy. But I am diabetic and can't use Honey, white sugar, agave or coconut sugar without serious damage to my blood sugar control. I have tried Stevia and while I find it has some good uses in tea and less concentrated applications, I LOTHE the bitter aftertaste stevia has when used in quantity. I'm talking using the dried leaf, not the white powder which I think tastes even worse. For most of my sweetening needs I have used liquid sucralose since I need only 1 drop for most applications therefore limiting my ingestion to a small amount. But for a syrup I needed quite a bit. Swerve is a newer sweetener made from ogliosaccharides and erythritol, a sugar alcohol that does not cause gastric distress and has very little impact on blood sugar. If I could I would use honey. But I can't so this is what I choose to use.

 The finished syrup tastes pretty good. It's not something I'd want to pour all over my pancakes( which, by the way, I can't eat) but to take as a tonic by the spoonful nightly it is quite pleasant. This is an experiment, we shall see if the Swerve has any preservative qualities like sugar and honey do at syrup strength.

So, why did I do all this? Because Hawthorn berries are quite a nice cardio tonic and nourishing herb. My heart has been doing it's thing for more than 51 years now and a little assistance from Hawthorn might just help it keep on keepin' on for  51 more.  A member of my household has elevated blood pressure and Hawthorn has been known to help folks gently lower their blood pressure. Here is a nice little write up on Sister Hawthorn from my mentor Susun Weed:Hawthorn 

 I bought my Hawthorn from :Mountain Rose Herbs

and for those of you interested in finding more about Swerve and it's use as a sweetener for those who must limit glycemic impact look here :Swerve

Elderflower

I went on a edible plant walk today. It was so lovely. It rained a little but just enough to keep the heat from being oppressive. I got to see several old plant friends and met a few new ones like white mulberry. The berries are a cream white color and in my opinion much tastier than the purple berries. There were several other plants that fell into the Could eat category but not quite want to eat category. But who to my surprise did I see? ELDER! In the 15 years I've been here I have not found Elder anywhere in Dallas. I just needed a little help to find her. It never hurts to ask for help.

Elder has multiple umbels on it's flower head and the flowerhead above was so perfect I didn't want to harvest it so I looked for more. When I found another cache of elder I took only 3 small umbels from one plant because the whole flowerhead was not totally open and I thought that the 3 I got were enough for a small mason jar. I really don't want to harvest more than I need.

 I took the flowers home and put them in a small jar and covered them with 50% alcohol. I'm not sure yet if this will be an Elder tincture or Elder cordial.

If I leave it as a tincture it will grace me with it's fever lowering abilities. I know of this ability. WebMd mentions that elder has blood sugar lowering abilities. I don't know about this but I am going to find out more on that. If I decide to make this into a cordial it will be a low carb version of the delightful and subtle St. Germain liqueur:St. Germain. Stay tuned to see how this turns out.

Fruit in jars!

Today I saw some peaches at Albertsons that looked and smelled nice. Did I buy them for a pie? Of course not! I put that shit in jars! I think that I'm going to try brandy and peach for a batch when the local peaches come in. Anyway here is my fruit haul in all it's boozy glory.

Cordials!

Cordials are a curious thing. They remind me of Victorian parlors and cut lead class vessels holding all manner of liquid delights. I don't know why I think of them as old fashioned but I do. They are a sipping drink, a slow drink ment to be savored in small quantity. And with the price of most commercial cordials I can see why. Cordials pack a hefty punch to the wallet.
 Wait a minute, you don't know what a cordial is? Let me tell you. A cordial is a sweetened liquor made most often from fruits, aromatic flowers or herbs that is sipped in small quantities as a digestif or just a saut de langue (I just made that up). They are often made with neutral spirits but can be made with Brandy or even rum or tequila. Once in a while a cordial may even have medicinal properties but most often they are just to delight the tongue.
 I got inspired at the grocery store the other day when I saw this beautiful rhubarb in the produce section. I never grew up eating rhubarb and it is too hot to grow it here in Dallas so I am not too familiar with it but I know it is tart. The stalks at the store were a beautiful red hue and very crisp looking so I bought a few and decided that a tart, sweet cordial might be a fun thing to try. I cut them up to expose more surface area and made a standard tincture from them.( I covered the almost full quart jar with 50% Everclear 50% water to make an almost 100 proof solution)  Then I let the tincture sit for a week. I did the same thing in a different jar with strawberries which were on sale at the store.

I did an experiment where I put a small batch of strawberries in straight Everclear to see if I could taste the difference in infusion techniques. I would think that the Everclear would pull more liquid from the fruit and give a deeper fruity taste after dilution to 100 proof but I'm not sure if there will be a difference between infusing in 100 Proof or 200 Proof. We shall see. At any rate, I saw that the Everclear batch was blanched out and the liquid was a very pretty red so I decided to decant that batch and dilute it. It smelled nicely of strawberries but was kind of harsh. Then I remembered that strawberry and rhubarb are often cooked together and this pretty baby was born.

Oh, what a delight this was! A Strawberry and Rhubarb Cordial! Sweet and tart at the same time. And a very pretty pink to boot! As I am diabetic I needed to avoid using sucrose to sweeten this, and it did need sweetening to bring up the strawberry flavor so I used only one drop of liquid sucralose.  The first sip was extraordinary. But then I got to thinking. I like my lemoncello straight from the freezer, perhaps this would be good cold. I added an ice cube and Voilá, perfection. The one drop of liquid sucralose was just enough sweetening without a bitter aftertaste and the ice made the rhubarb flavor pop. Of course, if you are not watching your sugar intake you can sweeten this with a simple syrup made from sugar and water in a 1:1 ratio boiled until disolved. I am very happy with this combination. After this sits for a month to mellow the Everclear this cordial combo should be sublime. I am so happy with this that I may make up more strawberry "tincture" and then use that to make up a medicinal tincture that tastes good, like Echinacea in strawberry.

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB CORDIAL
2T Strawberry vodka 100 proof
1T Rhubarb vodka 100 Proof
1 Dr. liquid sucralose