How to Make a Kombucha SCOBY HOTEL 😍 (easy method)

Welcome back to The Fermentation Adventure. In this video, we are sharing best practices for creating and maintaining your SCOBY hotel. I mean, once you start making kombucha, you're gonna end up with so many SCOBYs. So what do you do with them all? That's where our SCOBY hotel comes in handy. And we'll also share some tips on what to do with all your extra kombucha and SCOBYs. It really does look like jerky. I'm excited to try it. So let's get into it. Join us on this journey If you'd like to learn how to make ferments like these, start now by clicking subscribe and hitting that bell so you don't miss a thing. First, what is a SCOBY hotel? Welcome to the SCOBY hotel. I'm Mrs. SCOBY. I'm checking in. Mrs. SCOBY. Yes, do you have my reservation? Ah, here we go. Enjoy your stay. No, no, no. A SCOBY hotel is where you can store all your extra SCOBYs, which are basically your living kombucha cultures. So if you're making kombucha, you are definitely going to end up with a ton of SCOBYs over time. Even this SCOBY hotel is going to make its own SCOBYs on top of it. We have three, four, but this might be full within months. But why would we want to make a SCOBY hotel? Really just serves as a backup. It has living SCOBYs and already finished fermented starter tea. So if anything happens to the kombucha that you're currently brewing, then this just serves as a backup. So you'll be able to make a new batch of kombucha at any time using the SCOBYs that are in your SCOBY hotel. This is especially helpful when you're wanting to take a long break from making kombucha regularly. I think I need a SCOBY hotel. So how do you make a SCOBY hotel? We're going to need a large glass container. Just like when we make kombucha. Because you're basically creating a continuous kombucha brew. It's going to be fermenting and keeping your SCOBYs alive by feeding it occasionally some more fresh sweet tea. The easiest way to think about making a SCOBY hotel is you're simply making a batch of kombucha. And then if you have any other SCOBYs from any other batches, you simply put them all in here. And if you have questions on making the kombucha itself, then head over to our Fermentation Adventure channel and check out our video on how to make kombucha. It's easy. Here's a few snippets from the video. First thing we're going to do is take some of our starter tea and add it to the fresh brewed tea. Find a good, nice, thick one to put it into our new batch of tea. On the third day, we really see the SCOBY forming. Since we use mature starter liquid from our SCOBY hotel, the fermentation process is happening quickly. And eventually, it will look like our SCOBY hotel right here that has been sitting at room temperature for months. And we even have another SCOBY growing right here. Yeah, look how thick that thing's getting. But the same rules apply as making kombucha. It's best to only use simple black or green teas because the kombucha culture thrives on the tannins. And any kind of flavorings or just herbal teas, it might weaken the culture. Always cool your tea to room temperature. Otherwise, it could kill your ferment. Of course, always use non-chlorinated water. Your SCOBY hotel needs a breathable cover in order for your SCOBYs to survive, like a towel or a coffee filter held down by a rubber band, something like that, just to keep any big particles and any bugs out. Store your SCOBY hotel out of direct sunlight at a temperature somewhere in the 70s degree Fahrenheit, but not in the fridge because unlike ginger bug or ginger beer, kombucha cultures don't do very well in the fridge. And mold shouldn't be an issue just because of how acidic kombucha is. But if you ever see mold, we definitely recommend throwing it out and starting over. So now that we have our SCOBY hotel, how do we maintain it? What's really cool is that this SCOBY hotel does not require a lot of maintenance. All you have to do to maintain a SCOBY hotel is occasionally feed it finished kombucha that's still slightly sweet or just with freshly brewed sweet tea. Really, we're talking about refreshing the tea only every one to six months. And that is going to depend on basically what it looks like. The liquid, has it evaporated? The SCOBYs, is it kind of turning dark or looking a little flimsy? If so, a feeding is needed. So our SCOBY hotel has been going for about six months now. And while it still looks really good, it's been a while. So I think we need to refresh our SCOBY hotel right now. Basically with every feeding, you can replace up to 80% of the liquid. And the reason for this is the remaining tea is what continues the fermentation process. We're gonna go ahead and give this a pretty good refresh, about half the amount today. So that's about a liter. So we need about one liter of fresh sweet tea. Just about any combination of tea and sugar should work, but we'll use our usual kombucha tea recipe, which is one liter of non-chlorinated water, half a tablespoon of loose black tea and one fourth cup of cane sugar. While that cools, we'll remove about one liter of the kombucha liquid from the SCOBY hotel so that there's room to add our fresh brewed sweet tea. Leaving just enough kombucha liquid to keep the fermentation process going. And once our fresh tea is strained and has cooled, we're ready to pour it into our SCOBY hotel. Now this is actually just going to go off to the side for another one to six months, depending on how it looks. And just like that, our SCOBY hotel is refreshed. By now, you're probably wondering, what do you do with the discarded kombucha liquid? How can I help? Well, you can use it to start a new batch of kombucha or you can cook with it, perhaps a salad dressing. Paul actually likes this one, so I think it's a hit. Or you can clean with it, same as you would use vinegar. And what about all your extra SCOBYs? You can start more kombucha or give some SCOBYs to your friends. You can also eat them. Ever tried SCOBY jerky? Just dry it out for up to 12 hours in a dehydrator on the lowest heat. And there you have it, jerky full of healthy probiotics. And actually it's delicious, though perhaps it's an acquired taste. We have never tried this before, but we've been hearing for a long time that you can actually make kombucha SCOBY jerky. But now we actually get to try it for the first time. And the first thing I noticed, it smells a little vinegary. It really does look like jerky. I'm excited to try it. So it's really leathery. I can't even tear it. We actually used a SCOBY that was a little bit thick. Yeah, quarter inch. And we've heard that this might be better suited for really thin SCOBYs. And you would probably need to dehydrate this for a little less time to make it chewier. But we're just gonna cut a piece off so that we can actually try this. Well, it's very strong in flavor, vinegar. It's oddly addicting. Kind of like a really tough gummy bear. It's so chewy. Not only does it really have, I don't know, probably practically no calories. It has probiotics. I could see this like on a road trip. What an interesting new snack that we've just found. Cool. Very interesting. I like this way of using SCOBYs. Well, we are so pleased you enjoyed your stay. Feel free to subscribe. I definitely will. And I will tell all of my SCOBY friends. Well, I guess until we see you next time, I hope you enjoy watching your SCOBYs grow, keeping them nice and healthy, and get out there and create some culture. Happy fermenting. Maybe I'll go check out this hotel.