Gelatin Free Plain Kombucha
Brewing your own kombucha at home is one of those deeply satisfying kitchen projects that rewards patience with something genuinely delicious — tangy, lightly fizzy, and alive with probiotic goodness. Many store-bought fermented drinks sneak in additives or stabilizers that can be hard to track down on a label, so making it from scratch gives you complete control over every single ingredient. The process here is beautifully simple: strong black tea, dissolved sugar, a SCOBY, and a splash of starter liquid are all it takes to kick off fermentation. Cooling the sweet tea to the right temperature before introducing the SCOBY is the key step that protects the culture and sets the whole batch up for success. After about a week, you start tasting daily until that perfect balance of tart and mild sweetness hits — and that moment is genuinely exciting. The finished kombucha gets strained into bottles and chilled, ready to sip over the next couple of weeks. Once you have your first batch done, you'll always have starter liquid on hand, making every future brew even easier.
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Learn more →Ingredients
8 servings
- 3.5 quarts filtered water, divided
- 4 bags plain black tea (or 1 tbsp loose-leaf black tea)
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast)
- ½ cup starter liquid (unflavored, unpasteurized kombucha from a previous batch or store-bought raw kombucha)
Instructions
- 1
Bring 1 quart of the filtered water to a boil in a large pot. Remove from heat, add the tea bags (or loose-leaf tea in a strainer), and steep for 5–7 minutes, until the tea is deep amber and strongly brewed. Remove and discard the tea bags or strainer.
- 2
Add the sugar to the hot tea and stir with a long-handled spoon until fully dissolved, about 1 minute.
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