Well, I'm not lotsaboys or SarahK, but we've been brewing Kombucha for around 3 years. I've definitely learned my lesson: I ALWAYS boil all my water for my tea (1 gallon or a little less) instead of adding cool water to my already boiled stuff. Does that make sense? Inotherwords, I ALWAYS boil all my water!!
Here's what happened: Being in a hurry, I tried the boil + add cool water technique. After our regular brewing time of about 2 weeks (we're cold here, so it takes longer), I opened my lovely batch of kombucha tea only to discover that the entire batch had gone gooey on me! It was thick and slimey, like a big batch of snot (sorry, TMI!) I immediately threw it out, along with the scoby and vowed to NEVER do that again! Yipes!

Sooo, when I do things properly and boil the entire gallon of water, then add the heaping cup of sugar, boil again, throw in 5 tea bags (Lipton black only, we are not fond of the flavors), let steep and cool overnight, then strain + add scoby in the morning, we never have any problems. And I have nice thick, happy scobies!! I always play by the rules with kombucha!!!
