Feed Me Like You Mean It: Kombucha Balance

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Kombucha Balance

I was thinking of writing a follow-up to my October post about kombucha.

Then I stumbled across this great page by Len Porzio entitled "Kombucha, The Balancing Act: Obtaining and Maintaining the Maximum Taste and Benefit from your Kombucha through Consideration and Application of Balance."

The "balance" that Len is talking about is the balance between bacteria and yeast. Bacteria produce most of the beneficial substances in kombucha; yeast set the stage, by breaking down sweetened tea into compounds accessible to the bacteria. Typical robust kombucha cultures may be yeast-heavy, leading to a suboptimal brew.

In addition to explicitly addressing the question of balance, Len includes sections on other topics, including "SCOBY Escape" (this was new to me!), brewing in varying temperatures (relevant as the weather gets colder), reducing caffeine, etc.

I hope others find this as amusing and informative as I did!

No comments:

Books I've Read Recently

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Weston A. Price: Rather that theorizing abstractly about human nutrition, the author sought out isolated groups of healthy people around the world (this was in the 1930s, when there were still isolated groups of people), and documented their foodways. Price's book is jaw-dropping (literally). He describes group after group of people who are healthy in isolation, and become sick, miserable, and toothless when they adopt a "modern" diet. Aren't you curious what they were eating when they were healthy? Full write-up coming soon.

Other Books I've Read

The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights, by David E. Gumpert: Is the government engaged in a covert and illegal campaign to discourage people from making their own food choices? Read the facts and decide for yourself. Full review here.
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, by Shizuo Tsuji and Yoshiki Tsuji: A masterwork on the subject of Japanese cuisine, and by extension, Japanese culture.
Winning Bicycle Racing, by Jack Simes: A short, fascinating book on the subject of bicycling, published in 1976, when the majority of men still wore moustaches. And as with any bicycling publication, there are some great facial expressions.
The Secret History of the World: As Laid Down by the Secret Societies, by Mark Booth: A truly fascinating, meticulously documented look at the evolution of human consciousness and religion. What are some of the connections among different religions' creation myths and pantheons? Why are there astrological and other "pagan" symbols in Christian rites? Did you know that "elohim", the Hebrew word in Genesis typically translated as "God", is actually a plural noun? And so on. N.B.: the book describes an almost exclusively male experience. I think Booth could have done more in the front material to explain this, or at least to notify the reader of the orientation.
The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy, by Sasha Issenberg: The history of sushi and the sushi supply chain, detailing the journey that your fish takes from the cold ocean to your neighborhood sushi bar, often by way of Tokyo. Sasha Issenberg focuses on the lives of the people involved in the sushi trade. Fascinating and well-written.
The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice, by Trevor Corson: The story of some students at a sushi academy—and more generally, the story of sushi itself. A wonderful book, entertaining, thorougly and carefully researched, and instructive. It makes me want to eat sushi. Or write about it. Similar, but only a bit, to The Making of a Chef, by Michael Ruhlman.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, by James Howard Kunstler
The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic America, by Patricia Klindienst

Food Preserving Reading List

Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz
Ball Blue Book of Preserving
Putting Food By, by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg, and Beatrice Vaughan: A classic work on the subject of food preserving, with an emphasis on canning.
Preserved, by Nick Sandler
Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation, by The Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante, with forewords by Deborah Madison and Eliot Coleman
ServSafe CourseBook with Online Exam Voucher (5th Edition): You, too, can be ServSafe Certified!