Bacterial Cellulose
This recipe is just for growing your bacterial cellulose from the SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast) of a kombucha. There are many resources for making ‘SCOBY leather' which mainly consist of letting the SCOBY dry and then coating it with a water-resistant beeswax layer. But there is also a wider range of options for working with bacterial cellulose. There will be more recipes up on the site soon for working with bacterial cellulose but for now here is a recipe simply to get you started growing it.
Ingredients
Imperial
- 7 cups clean water
- 1 cup live kombucha
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 4 bags black tea
Equipment
- 1 glass container
- 1 tightly woven cloth
- 1 rubber band
Preparation
- Make your sweetened tea. Bring water to a boil and then stir in sugar until fully dissolved. Add tea bags and allow to steep until liquid cools to room temperature.
- Pour sweetened tea into your container and then add the live kombucha.
- Cover your container with a tightly woven cloth (I prefer cheesecloth) and secure with a rubber band. Store container room temperature and somewhere out of direct sunlight.
- Leave your fledgling kombucha for 1-4 weeks to ferment. You should start to see small bubbles forming and a thin opaque layer on top that will become your SCOBY.
Eventually when your SCOBY is mature it will create thick white pellicles that will usually grow at the air-water interface. If your SCOBY sinks to the bottom that is also fine, these will often darken over time due to prolonged exposure to the tannins in the black tea.
