Kombucha Diary

I took a wonderful kombucha class at Brooklyn Kitchen a few weeks ago, and though I butchered my first batch of "buch," that was entirely my fault. Eric Childs, 'Kombuchman' and founder of Kombucha Brooklyn is a great instructor, and I highly recommend the class if you are in the neighborhood.

But there are a couple of things I learned on my own since taking the class, and I want to share my hard-earned lessons with anyone who may benefit!

1. The best place to get glass jars of ANY SIZE is at Rappaport Bottles in Williamsburg. It's at N. 10th St. and Roebling. At first glance it doesn't look like they'd sell directly to people (it's a big warehouse/factory type place) but if you just go in there's a table covered with every type of jar/container they have, and the people there are really nice!

Thanks to my other friend Eric (of Brouwerij Lane) for turning me on to that place! I swear, I hit every random store on Manhattan Ave. and was on the brink of going to the Container Store when he told me about Rappaport. Phew! A Container Store spending spree averted!

2. Make sure your kitchen, and anything that comes NEAR your kombucha-brewing stuff is super, super clean! I cannot emphasize this enough. Do you know what happens when something that is not totally clean touches the kombucha culture before you slip it into its glass jar womb? It grows super, super disgusting mold that will make you want to puke violently when you see it. That picture of moldy brew on the Wiki page is nothing compared to the nastiness that I had going on my poor, tortured buch.

Yeah, so my kitchen is dirty. Taking care of that today! And rearranging all my furniture...must be the change of seasons.

You can find a lot of information on kombucha on the Internet very quickly if you are curious. I'll post the next installment of my kombucha diary once I see some positive developments. Hopefully I can clean up my act and brew some good stuff!