Kombucha Continuous Brew

We have been keeping various ancient cultures for years.  We started with milk kefir, then went on to things such as water kefir and sour dough.  Some cultures we have kept going for years, others we have lost, and others we decided to stop doing for now due to various reasons.  One of the cultures we have at the moment that I really enjoy is kombucha.

Unfortunately the origin of kombucha has been lost to history.  Several romantic theories have been made about the origins of kombucha, none appear to be based on anything other than dramatic story telling, and these stories eventually merged to the one that is often told today.  The truth is that we know roughly where kombucha originated, we know vaguely when it started to become popular, but it doesn’t make one ounce of difference.  The drink tastes good, it is simple to make, and it reportedly has several health benefits.  Who really cares when or how it was discovered.

I thought I would write a blog post to share the down sides of continuous brew kombucha, and test some of the health claims.  I think you may be surprised by the results.

Continuous brew kombucha

Early this year a very generous person gave me their beautiful continuous brew kombucha set up.  This thing is amazing.  It is large enough to make decent amounts of kombucha, and other than drawing off liquid and filling it up when low the system pretty much takes care of itself.  I have no idea if continuous brew is as good as batch brewing, but it works well for us so I am happy with it.  There have been two down sides to continuous brewing kombucha so far.

Firstly, and unimportantly, my scoby is not as pretty as the ones I see on the internet.  On the internet they always look like a perfect neat pile of fluffy pancakes floating blissfully in clear tea.  My scoby looks more like a pile of pancakes that was quickly eaten and immediately puked up by a donkey.   I am sure I could remove the messier ones and make it look prettier for a short time if I wanted to, but it would soon get back to looking like this.   It does its job well, so it doesn’t matter what it looks like.

Secondly, the only important down side I have noticed is that the little tap gets clogged from time to time.   I am not sure of a way around this other than cleaning the tap out when needed.  If you have a better system and some way to prevent the tap from getting clogged please let me know.

Kombucha scoby, mine doesn't look as pretty as the ones I see on the internet!

There are many anecdotal reports about the health benefits of kombucha, these range from things that seem reasonable to utterly absurd exaggerations that only a fool would be taken in by and everything in between.  Some health benefits have been scientifically tested, while others have not.   Some of the more commonly reported health benefits include decreased blood pressure, evening out of blood sugars, improved digestion, weight loss, increase in general immunity, lowered levels of anxiety and depression, and improvement in overall health.

Some of the alleged health benefits would be lovely, while others would actually be bad for me.  Decreasing blood pressure would be dreadful for me as I already have low blood pressure.  It is possible that kombucha helps even out blood pressure, but the people who rave about it mostly have high blood pressure?  Or maybe it has no noticeable effect on blood pressure and this is one of the many false claims?  I don’t know, so I decided to just drink it and see how I went.

Nothing works immediately, if anything is actually going to actually make you healthier it is going to take time before you can notice the difference.   When you notice the difference straight away it is often not going to do you a great deal of good long term (such as in the case of pain killers or antibiotics) or it is a placebo.   For the past few months I have been drinking kombucha most days.

So how do I feel after drinking kombucha for around six months, and how does that compare to before I started to drink kombucha?

Kombucha - the lines let me know when to refill

Unfortunately I have to admit that I feel exactly the same as I did before I stared to drink kombucha.  That's disappointing and unexpected.
 
My digestion is no better or worse, my general immunity is no different than before, my blood pressure and blood sugars are the same as always, and my overall level of health has not been altered one bit.  I was not expecting that.

I would love for kombucha to be a cure all tonic that made me as fit and strong as I was ten years ago, but it is not.  This doesn’t matter, I plan to keep brewing and drinking kombucha simply because I like it.

I don’t know if kombucha ever improves people’s health, maybe it helps some people but not others.  Perhaps my health made no improvement as I was relatively healthy to begin with.   I have issues with my neck and back due to an injury, I have low blood pressure and I need to keep an eye on my blood sugars (I have almost cured myself of blood sugar issues), but I eat well and am not sick all that often.  I don’t eat a lot of processed food and I sometimes drink water kefir so my gut flora is probably well established and robust.

Maybe kombucha improves the overall health of people who are generally unhealthy, eat poorly, and have imbalances in their gut flora.   I will continue to brew and drink kombucha simply because I like the taste, any health benefits that I may be getting from it are just a bonus.

Kombucha taste good to me

I should put up a post with the recipe for how I make kombucha, partly to help others but partly in case I ever forget.  The recipe I use is really simple and takes very little time.   When I do write a post with the recipe I will try to remember to link to it from here.

I don’t currently sell kombucha starter scoby through my for sale page as I am concerned about how it is covered under food safety laws.   I know that it is virtually impossible to legally sell eggs at markets in Australia due to food safety laws, I assume kombucha is probably restricted in similar ways.