Homemade Kombucha : Yeast Strands

Don't be alarmed when you see Reddish Brown edges on your SCOBY.  It's natural yeast strands.  When your viewing blogs or buying a SCOBY, typically the have cut and shaped it into perfect visually pleasing circle.  And its typically solid white. Nature is not prefect and things rarely form the way products are packaged.  The above picture is how my KOMBUCHA developed, you can see thin layer off the BABY SCOBY and yeast strands below it.  This is not mold or out of the norm.

New Brewers or people who don't understand KOMBUCHA may get freaked out by it like my coworkers but don't be alarmed.  If it bothers you can you trim it.  Also sometimes it will be a slimy looking loose strand in your brew, you can strain it out as well.

Kombucha : CAN I CUT MY SCOBY?

When you first start brewing, your SCOBY's are precious and scarce so it really becomes a priority to create multiple baby Scoby's so that you can store for emergencies ( like mold or vinegar eels ) or just to pass on to friends.  So after my Second BATCH of KOMBUCHA, I wanted to experiment and see if I could cut up a large baby SCOBY into smaller pieces to brew.  I took a big SCOBY that I got from my Gallon jar and cut it into 1/3 pieces.  And just brewed with one of the smaller SCOBYs and YES!!!!! You can totally cut up your SCOBY's and they will grow baby SCOBY's!

As pictured above , you can't even see the mother SCOBY because the baby SCOBY becomes even larger than the Mother.

FYI, in all my brews so far the baby SCOBY will develop to the size of the exposed surface of your brew jar.

Note on cutting your SCOBY, avoid using metal.  The brewer in my class was very casual and just cut it quickly with metal sissors.  But he does this for a living and has tons of back up SCOBYs so I just used a plastic knife.

Sterilize everything your SCOBY will come in contact with.  Sterilize with Vinegar or plain KOMBUCHA, or hot boiling water.  DO NOT clean with ANTIBACTERIAL soap (if you do make sure to rinse alot) your SCOBY will not like it.