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Comment by dghughes | Hacker News Reader

Kombucha tastes like a circuit board so making them into circuit boards is a good idea.

I love Kombucha but hate 99% of those you find in stores. They do taste like a circuit board.

Store brands are weak, pasteurized, and filtered, such that any unique flavor has been removed to appeal to the average shopper. Drink someone's home-brewed kombucha and you will be blessed with flavors that cannot be found anywhere else.

This goes for all fermented products, such as sauerkraut, yogurt, kefir, and tempeh. Homemade is where all the flavors are preserved.

Whenever someone tells me how much they love kombucha, I get the feeling they are trying to convince themselves more than they are me.

Whenever someone tells me how much they hate kombucha, I get the feeling they tried one gross bottle one time, and wrote it all off as bad.

I am brewing 5 flavors right now in my house. I assure you, they are delicious.

Guava Jasmine is my current favorite.

But keep hating on it if you like, you're missing out on something great.

I love Guava but have not tried it as kombucha yet, definitely should give that a try! My personal favourite is either "ginger" or Canadian Berry (https://www.farmboy.ca/products/farm-boy-organic-canadian-be...). _Very_ different flavour, but could drink those all the time.

Could you share any good resources for someone to start brewing it? Or any tips?

Make sweet tea, add SCOBY, wait. It really is that simple.

This is the basic recipe I use: https://www.reddit.com/r/kombucha/wiki/how_to_start#wiki_mas...

For more information, The Big Book of Kombucha will have everything you need and more.

Have fun! :)

> SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast)

https://www.youbrewkombucha.com/scoby-care-hotel

(Just passing by; I have no personal interest in kombucha, was simply unaware of the term.)

Now, how about limiting the fermentation after bottling? I have a couple bottles still in the fridge, that I now call "kombucha grenades." I thought I could open the last one I tried safely, in the sink, and it basically hosed the kitchen and myself. The last few will be outside-only endeavours, wearing a garbage bag like a Gallagher audience member. (Tastes good, at least the half a bottle that is still in the bottle.)

Keep them in the fridge for longer, the carbonation will go down over time.

Also, try placing the bottle in a container or bowl, then hold another (slightly narrower container) over the top of the bottle. You should be able to catch all of the liquid in the bowl to pour into a glass.

If you added a bunch of sugar and/or flavoring into the secondary fermentation / bottles, you added too much. If you didn't add anything, then you didn't let the primary fermentation go long enough.

Oh, guessing the latter, thanks! I hadn't added anything for a secondary or bottling stage. I am used to regular beer brewing, I think that runs out of steam sooner. Will have to try the two-bowl method.

Yeah. I don't know my kombucha like you seem to, but I've just tried two flavors by two separate brands recently. One (I can't remember what it was) was barely drinkable, second one (hibiscus & rose hips by RISE kombucha) was delicious. It's weird to me to somehow being able to write off a whole family of drinks as undrinkable. I don't like purple Crush, doesn't mean I don't like all colas. I don't like Bombay Sapphire, but gin can be delicious. And so on...

Homemade tends to be milder than store bought and less vinegary. It continues to ferment as it sits on store shelves.

There are people out there that feel the same way about eating rats

It depends, I genuinely like Kombucha. But it's not a blanket statement for all of them, there's many different flavours and some I dislike, some I like. :)

For me, kombucha has been a natural progression of my exploration into fermented foods. The concept that so many of our favorite foods are produced with the assistance of bacteria is just fascinating to me. The funky flavors of fermented foods is a hurdle, for sure.

I genuinely love salty licorice. Sometimes we learn to love gross things.

When I brewed my kombucha, it was all about how much time do you spend on brewing. In the start it's just very sweet black tea. As time goes, sugar gets processed into acids. With a lot of time, it turns into very acidic mix so it's definitely not something to enjoy and probably not healthy for stomach. So depending on how much time do you spend, you'll get something in between which might be not very tasty or might actually be very tasty.

You can also swap black tea for green tea or other liquids. I'm think that kombucha does not care, all it needs is sugar and tea is for human (although I might be wrong about it).

I actually liked it, but it requires too much housekeeping, so I abandoned it.

Shhh, let people enjoy things.

The best kombucha I ever had was like drinking vinegar. I happen to love drinking vinegar, just as much as I love drinking lemon juice. Only, that's horrible for one's teeth, so I must restrain myself. I've had kombucha people tell me that vinegar is disgusting and the kombucha I had was "off." Oh well. To each their own.

I like kombucha but also lemon juice lol. You don't like the taste of alcohol or coffee either at first but then you love it

Not true, i love it. Not always, kinda like beer there are times when it is more tasty

Whenever someone asserts subjective opinion as some sort of axiom I dismiss them and their comment entirely.

See how that works?

It's an acquired taste. Circuit boards, that is.

You can season them up pretty well. I like the classic seasoning combo of brow sweat, flux, and hardened cigarette tar.

I laughed out-loud for that.

As someone that enjoys some (but not all) sodas and kombuchas I really recommend people try several. Don't think all wines/sodas/teas/smoothies etc... are the same. They can be made from just about anything (fortunately/unfortunately)

I hate beer and soda, but I've never met a kombucha I didn't love.

Do you think it's a texture thing? Or lack of varied experience?

Those two products have tens of thousands of flavor profiles, it's strange to me that you can dismiss them entirely.

I had a red velvet cheesecake craft beer the other day and there was no hint of "beer" in it.

I like everything, and I've never had kombucha, so this thread has me excited to try it... Many times, for the various flavors!

I loved soda as a kid, and beer in my twenties. Now I quite dislike the taste of alcohol and sugar in the quantities one typically finds in beer and soda, but you're right, there are exceptions I have enjoyed. They've been rare. (I haven't kept track, and I haven't actively sought them out either.)

I brew Kombucha. It's actually delicious, but you need to get a batch made by someone who knows what they're doing. Unfortunately, the latter is hard to come by because there's very little science in Kombucha circles.

Ain't that the truth? So much folklore and superstition about how the fermentation process works. I remember being told you can't make Jun with a Kombucha starter because it's a different bacteria, and even if you did get Kombucha to ferment the honey, it wouldn't actually be Jun. And the complete obsession and misinformation around the pellicle!

The pellicle stuff drives me nuts but I feel pedantic correcting people. I need to find an easier way to observe bacteria, because right now I'm relying on sugar content to determine "doneness", which is pretty second order to all the things that can happen around sugar in a kombucha brew.

I used to make "Kombucha" in the 80s when I still lived in USSR. It tasted really good. The stuff they sell here in stores tastes really bad, mostly like carbonated vinegar.

Wrong Kombucha then. Source: Kombucha brewer.

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