No Half Measures

19 May 2024

I’ve been making kombucha for several years now, two half-gallon jars sitting on our counter, sharing their heating mat and wearing mesh covers. I let them sit for two weeks, and alternate so that a half-gallon is ready to drink each week. This is about three Grolsch flip-top bottles.

After all this time, my SO is ready to double the volume, which he immediately kicked off by purchasing four 1-gallon jars. This also meant I got a chance to upgrade my setup to make the process easier.

I got another heater, a strainer that would fit in the mouth of the gallon jars and more temperature strips. I also got cute jar covers, since my repurposed mesh coffee strainers had served admirable for about 10 years and were showing their age. The biggest change is switching to a siphon and auto-filler, because I wasn’t going to be able to hold up a gallon jar and pour into a funnel like I used to.

We also had to dig many more Grolsch bottles out of our brewing supplies, because during the transition I made 1.5 gallons of kombucha, which filled 10 bottles. This actually lasted us for three days!

The SCOBY seems to have met the new volume with no issues, and the transition from the half-gallon jars is complete!