HANGING OUT AT THE PENNSYLVANIA FARM SHOW
In my second year at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, I spent two great days chatting about fermentation with people from all over Pennsylvania. I LOVE the Farm Show. I really love it. First, Fillmore Container sponsored my attendance, and the Fillmore people are pretty much the nicest folks you could ever imagine, so spending time with them is just fun.
Fillmore has seriously beefed up their fermentation product line, so if you were at the booth, coveting the new Pickle Pipe or jar weights, for instance, you can get them over on the Fillmore site any time you’d like!
Second, I love it there because I have the opportunity to talk to so many people about fermentation. And many of them have different fermenting goals (aka feeding a family of 11 on a budget, something I rarely encounter in my city-based classes and events) than the people I normally teach in Philly. While I do love writing about fermentation, writing doesn’t afford me to opportunity to see people’s faces when they get excited and realize they can do this or when they finally understand the issue that has been plaguing their yogurt production for all these years. At the Farm Show, I get to see that all day long. It’s fun. It’s joyful and it gives me energy and excites me to teach and write more.
This year I had a busy schedule that included making kombucha, sauerkraut, kefir, yogurt, pickles and so much more when people strolled up to the Fillmore booth with their excellent questions. In short, it was a dream trip for a fermenter who loves talking to people about fermentation.
Finally, it’s just a wild ride. There are horses running down the hallways, every imaginable type of fried food, the talents of Pennsylvanians on display in competitions from greeting card-making to jar decorating to serious quilting. For the curious of mind, it is really a fun way to wander the day away. Thanks for the opportunity, Fillmore Container!
KOMBUCHA RECIPE
One thing I always love to do for big events and classes is to test out a new recipe for something that I can enjoy for the first time with people taking the class, and this trip to the Farm Show was no exception. I made an Apple Spice Kombucha and a Molasses Kombucha for a recent kombucha class and they were both tasty, but when I put them together to free up one of my handy carbonation tools (aka recycled plastic seltzer bottles), I found that I liked them even better combined.
So here you have the newly tweaked product of this happy accident. Although molasses is definitely a sugar, it doesn’t seem like the kombucha microbes have the easiest time digesting it, which results in two things: this isn’t a super-speedy carbonator and you’ll still be getting a decent dose of sugar when you drink this after secondary fermentation. So feel free to cut the molasses a bit if you don’t do well with carbs.
MOLASSES APPLE SPICE KOMBUCHA RECIPE
yield about 1.5 quarts of booch
New to making kombucha? Check out Phickle’s Komucha Basics guide before you kick things off. Just remember that carbonation times will vary depending on how sweet the finished kombucha you bottle is, the temperature in your home, and more. I like to give it at least 2-3 weeks to fully carbonate in winter. If you don’t care about carbonation, feel free to skip the 2 liter bottle and just combine the ingredients in a jar to enjoy after a couple days. Keep in mind that bottling and carbonating in glass bottles is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Do that at your own risk.
Equipment
- 1 plastic 2-liter bottle with a sealing lid, such as a cleaned, recycled soda bottle
- Funnel
Ingredients
- Roughly 6 cups (1.4 L) of kombucha that is still somewhat sweet
- 1/2 t cardamom
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon or 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably fresh grated
- 1/8 teaspoon allspice or 3 allspice berries
- 1 inch fresh ginger, shredded, or 1/8th teaspoon powdered
- 1 cup of the best quality apple cider you can access
- 3 tablespoons molasses
In a large bowl, stir about 1/2 of the kombucha with powdered spices, cider and molasses until molasses is dissolved. Pour this and the rest of the kombucha into the bottle and add cinnamon sticks and grated ginger if using.
Alternatively, you can add all ingredients to the 2-liter bottle and shake it until the molasses is dissolved. Fewer dishes, but a little more time, and you’ll need to check a few times to make sure it didn’t settle back out to the bottom. Also, if you shake it, make sure to carefully “burp” your bottle before resealing it for carbonation. Otherwise, it will give you false carbonation in just a couple hours. If your booch was very bubbly going in the bottle, you’ll also need to open with extreme caution, the way you would open a soda bottle that had been shaken.
And, btw, that extra space in your vessel helps with carbonation, so don’t fill the bottle to the top or close to the top if you want it carbonated.
Let it sit at warm room temperature for 1 to 4 weeks, checking daily, until the bottle is rigid (which tells you it’s fully carbonated). Move to the fridge for 2 or more hours and open with extreme care, over the sink.
You’ll need to pour it through a strainer for serving if you used the cinnamon sticks and grated ginger rather than the powdered stuff. This will also help remove any bits of SCOBY that have formed in the bottle. A gulp of newly formed SCOBY is a really unpleasant surprise IMO when I take a big gulp, so I always strain before serving.
Seal it back up and store it in the fridge. You can usually get it to re-carbonate, even as it sits in fridge.
Disclosure: Fillmore Container paid me to attend the farm show and provided many of the jars and fermentation equipment I used in my demonstrations. They did not require me to link to them, or to discuss their new fermented product line. I did that on my own because I like them and I think those products are pretty cool!
Martin Reynolds says
Just wanted to say it was good to see Filmore container and you at the farm show. Amazing enough, I saw our Vet yesterday, we got to talking about the farm show and some how about fermentation. She showed me her batch of Kombucha, and the rest is in the works. I forwarded your blog to her, and I’ll bet she will see you at the farm show. (Maybe before). Glad to have your new book. Martin the blacksmith
Amanda says
Very cool! Thanks so much for coming by, Martin!
arif says
This pickle looking awesome and I love it. thank you very much for this recipes.
Stacy says
Question… When you say, “Let it sit at warm room temperature for 1 to 4 weeks, checking daily, until the bottle is rigid (which tells you it’s fully carbonated).” What do you mean by “checking daily?” Am I taking the lid off of it or keeping it on? Am I checking and looking for something in the liquid that I should be looking for, or trying to avoid? Am I just squeezing the bottle to see if it is or is not rigid?
Thanks for your help, never made it before…
Alexei says
Just squeeze the bottle, that’s all!
Although the idea of fermenting booch in a plastic bottle strikes me as wrong! Use glass, add more sugar, and wait exactly 1 week after you mix it. Then chill and enjoy!
Amanda says
Hi Alexei,
How would you squeeze a glass bottle :-)? BE VERY CAREFUL when bottling in glass. Buy special bottles made to hold carbonation (home-brew shop ftw) and add sweetness (juice or sugar) with extreme judiciousness. Exploding glass bottles are a serious risk to your immediate health.
Billy says
This seems like such a flavorful recipe. I love anything that is flavored with cinnamon / apple (pretty much anything that has a chance to remind me of an apple pie) so I really can’t wait to give this kombucha recipe a try. Thank you so much for sharing this!
Marie says
I attended your info session at Independence Live. I should have taken notes. What is the recipe for one gallon of kombucha? Did I understand correctly that homemade buch does not contain probiaotics?
Amanda says
Hi Marie,
Thanks for coming out to the event! Here’s the link to everything kombucha (and everything I mentioned in class). You’ll see that the basic how-to for single batch and continuous are listed right at the top. The recipe for single batch is already written for a 1 gallon container, but all of my kombucha recipes can be scaled.
As for the probiotics, yes, I said that the vast majority of kombucha is not probiotic, and that commercial producers add probiotics in order to inhibit alcohol. (I do not recommend buying commercial over homebrewing: homebrewed kombucha can still be more microbially diverse than store-bought and you can get the probiotics added by commercial producers by eating other probiotic foods and not spending $$$$ on those grocery store varieties).
Until very recently, no kombucha had been shown to be probiotic, but one small, recent study did find lactic acid bacteria in their samples from Ireland. The authors of the study don’t know why those were probiotic, but one guess I have is that someone grew a SCOBY somewhere along the line previous to that from a store-bought kombucha and some of the LAB took hold. That’s just a guess, though, and unless you’re testing your kombucha, you won’t know what microbes you have, so your best bet will always be to drink things for health to the extent that you know they’re fixing a particular issue. Otherwise, drink them for taste!