#67: Kombucha Benefits and Homemade How-to with Hannah Crum

Hannah Crum, aka “The Kombucha Mamma”, pioneered Kombucha Kamp, an educational workshop, in 2004 out of her small Los Angeles kitchen. Through Kombucha Kamp’s videos, blog posts, online support communities, and award-winning, Amazon Best Seller The Big Book of Kombucha, it serves as a mentor to millions of homebrewers and commercial producers around the world.
In this episode, Hannah dives into the health and microbiome benefits of kombucha and why we should drink it regularly! She also demystifies the process of brewing your own kombucha at home, so you can get started making this potent health elixir yourself. Enjoy!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] to the Plan to Eat podcast. Where I interview industry experts about meal planning, food and wellness. To help you answer the question. What's for dinner. 

Roni: Hello, and thank you for joining me again on the Plan to Eat Podcast. Today, I have a really great interview with Hannah of Kombucha Camp. She calls herself the Kombucha Mama, which I love. We had an amazing conversation today all about kombucha and fermented foods. And if you have tried kombucha before, you know a lot of the things, you're going to recognize a lot of the things that she's talking about.

If you have maybe been skeptical of trying kombucha, I think that you will be persuaded after listening to this conversation because not only does she give lots of practical tips and facts about kombucha, but she also goes into a lot of the science behind what makes kombucha so good for us. So this is a really great episode that I [00:01:00] think you're going to glean a lot of information from.

I learned a ton about the biology of kombucha and a lot of the things that it helps. With in your body. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Hi, Hannah. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

Hannah: Hey Roni, great to be here.

Roni: So why don't you get started by telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Hannah: I am Hannah Ruhama, the kombucha mama, mother to zillions of bacteria around the world. My business is kombucha Camp Camp with a K 'cause with cute and clever over here. And I've been teaching people how to brew kombucha safely at home since 2004. I can't even believe it's been almost 20 years. Um, our website is kombucha camp.com and we sell kits and cultures and teach people how to brew safely.

Kombucha her raw honey cousin John. milk kefir and water kefir. So we really love our fermented foods and drinks. We're also the authors, my husband and I are co authors on The [00:02:00] Big Book of Kombucha, aptly named as it's at 400 pages. Word winning. Uh, we love it. It's, people call it the Bible. So we're really proud of our ability to get a ton of information out into the world so that people can enjoy these great fermented drinks as a gateway into learning more about their microbiome and regaining health and balance in their life.

Roni: Wow. So you did Kambucha before it was. In vogue.

Hannah: She found me. I did not seek out kombucha. Have you, you've tried kombucha? Yes.

Roni: Oh yeah, I, I used, I used to brew my own kombucha as well. So yeah, I'm, I'm kind of versed in the situation here.

Hannah: Well, I always like to ask people if they remember their first sip.

Roni: Oh, I don't know. I don't remember if I do. I think that, I mean, probably the first time that I had kombucha was, um, something that I bought from the store. Um, I think I might've been like a teenager, so it wasn't super appealing to me at that[00:03:00] 

Hannah: Exactly. This is what I'm getting to. My first sip was also at a store at Whole Foods. In fact, the first time I met kombucha, my friend had been brewing it in their San Francisco apartment. Very groovy. And all I did was see this like weird blob hanging out in a jar. And kombucha. I never heard of it. We didn't even try it, but I came back to L.

A. and lo and behold, wouldn't you imagine every Whole Foods had kombucha on its store shelves? I just had never seen it before. I grabbed that bottle, I opened it up, and I took my first sip. Now, like a lot of people, your reaction is very similar. It's like, Oh, what is this? This is funky. It's kind of weird.

It's tangy. For me, it was like the heavens opened and the angels were singing. And, and here's why, because I was the pickle juice drinker.

Roni: Oh,

Hannah: would always lecture me, don't drink that pickle juice. It's so salty and bad for you, but I love that flavor. And I was sad, standard American [00:04:00] diet. So I was eating a lot of processed foods, didn't have fermented foods and have these savory, delicious flavors in my life.

And I think my body just. Absorb those nutrients. Fell in love with that tangy profile. In fact, my mouth is watering now as I talk about it. You know how some people get about pickles or sauerkraut and it just my thirst outgrew my budget. So like a lot of people, I also started by buying it at the store.

Roni: so if, uh, why don't we start at the very basics in case somebody who is listening is not familiar with what kombucha is, or maybe they've seen it in the grocery store and have been like, I, I'm not sure if I want to try this. Well, let's just give an overview of what kombucha is.

Hannah: Yeah, kombucha essentially is fermented tea. We're talking about camellia sinensis, the actual tea plant. Traditionally was made with black tea. These days it can be made with black, green, white, all kinds of iterations. But just like. Wine is fermented grape juice and sauerkraut is fermented cabbage.

Kombucha is fermented tea. Now we ferment our tea and sugar, because sugar is important for all [00:05:00] fermentation processes, and in fact is a backbone of our DNA. Um, so sweet tea, and then we add a SCOBY. So SCOBY is an acronym. It stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast. In fact, we can think of the human body as a SCOBY, but we don't go putting ourselves into sweet tea to ferment kombucha.

Um, instead it looks kind of like a rubbery pancake. It's bacterial cellulose that the bacteria excrete from their cell walls. It's this really amazing, cool structure, and it has a ton of other uses. But for our purposes, we put it into the sweet tea, and we add some already fermented kombucha, what we call starter liquid.

So if you're new to kombucha and you've never made a batch, you always want to make sure you're sourcing one that's a living culture, that has at least one cup of that starter liquid included with it. For subsequent batches, you'll typically save some of your batch and then use that for the next batch.

Roni: Okay. So is the, including the starter liquid, does [00:06:00] that just help with the fermentation process? Or is there a specific other specific reason for having it in there?

Hannah: Yeah, the specific other reason is that it's at a low pH and it contains organic acids that are going to prevent mold and other things from growing in your booch. So kombucha tends to be very hardy. It's very resilient. In fact, that starter liquid can kill things like E. coli, salmonella, listeria on contact or within a couple of days.

Making it one of the safest things we can make at home. However, if we don't use that starter liquid, and it's all this sweet tea, well that's going to be delicious to all kinds of organisms, including mold. And so if we have weak starter, if we don't have the right temperature, then we can see our, our kombucha get mold.

Now here's the thing, kombucha's a food. How do you know when your bread has mold?

Roni: You can see it.

Hannah: Exactly! So, I get this all the time, like, What if there's bad bacteria in there? And I don't know. Which is completely understandable when we think about, [00:07:00] you know, I love raw milk, but certainly, you can't see if raw milk has some microbes that could maybe not be as good for you.

With kombucha though, like bread, like cheese, that mold is really visible. It's always on the surface. It's never in the liquid. Because for newbies, right? And you've done it yourself, Roni. So you know, you've got this weird thing. It's got all these strings hanging off of it. Is that the mold? Right? What is it?

But it's always on the surface and it's powdery. So that's the touch test. If you touch it with your finger and it leaves residue on your finger, it's probably mold.

Roni: okay.

Hannah: At that point, you want to toss it.

Roni: Okay. Yeah. I remember, um, when I, it's been a couple of years since I brewed my own kombucha, but I remember when I was doing it, I did a lot of different Google searches of like, is this normal? Is this what it's supposed to look like?

Hannah: We have a whole gallery of images. Mold, not mold, comm yeast. So, um, we definitely have answered many an email with photos [00:08:00] of things that were definitely not mold. Um, and that's just because, again, that yeast is visible. It's like big and globby. It can look green. It can look brown. And so people definitely...

want to be safe. And so you're always welcome to send us a photo. We're happy to troubleshoot that for you.

Roni: That's great. So if somebody is looking to get started making their own kombucha, well, maybe before we go there, what would be the benefit of making your own kombucha versus buying it? You mentioned price point, which I totally understand. Um, it can, it could get, if you were drinking kombucha every day, it would get really expensive to be buying it only from the grocery store.

But like, what are some of the other reasons why you might want to make it yourself?

Hannah: Well, and before we even do that, what are some of the reasons we want to drink it?

Roni: Yeah.

Hannah: Right. It's expensive. It tastes weird. Like, why am I buying this? Right? Well, so the amazing thing is we've been learning so much about the human microbiome and that's essentially all the microbes that live inside and on our bodies and what [00:09:00] we've Come to understand, I like to use this term bacteriosapien, like we really cannot live on this planet without the microbes that help us because they digest our food, they extract our nutrients, they are our immune system, and not only that, but if your gut isn't Healthy neither is your mind.

You often have mental health issues. And so it's so important that we're getting the right foods into our body. Now, sometimes our taste buds will trick us or we might get out of balance with a certain organism. Maybe we had to have a certain course of antibiotics and that allowed Candida or something like this to over proliferate.

And again, it's not that Candida isn't something that isn't in a healthy immune system or healthy gut. But when the conditions are there such that it can get out of balance, that's when we have a problem. And so drinking kombucha is of course putting healthy beneficial microbes into your body, but it has a secret power.

It has these other organic acids that break down toxins in the liver, you know, so the [00:10:00] liver helps us to live and she's a filter or he, whatever, depending on your body, um, you know, the liver filters out toxins that get into our body. Now, what happens is if. And our body makes these acids naturally gluconic, glucuronic acid, and they bond to these toxic molecules.

Once the bond is created, it can't be broken, so then through hydrolysis, which is drinking water and going pee, we flush them out of our system. Now if your system, if your liver doesn't have enough of these acids, it wants to protect you. So what does it do? excretes those toxins into your fat cells. And so I always like to emphasize it's not one, you know, fast food meal or one instance of consuming something that's typically causing an issue.

It's over time because if those toxins don't leave our body, they're bio accumulating. And so while it may feel like all of a sudden one day, I'm not feeling great. It actually is a cumulative effect from bad habits over time. So What's great about kombucha is it's coming in and it's gently [00:11:00] pulling those toxins out of your body.

It's helping to support your liver, which is having a dickens of a time these days with not just the fast food, but the polluted water, the polluted air, PFAS and everything. You know, like we're just bombarded these days with toxins and we're really resilient, but there comes a point when our bodies just can't handle it.

So kombucha is really great. I really feel like she's gotten popular right now to help people remove these toxins from their body.

Roni: Is kombucha unique, uh, compared to other fermented foods in that way? Or do all fermented foods help with this toxin release?

Hannah: I think all fermented foods are going to have their own unique organic acid profile that do different things. And so kombucha does have these gluconic and glucuronic acids. Now you're going to find those also in vinegar. Kombucha is an acetic acid ferment, hence the tangy flavor profile. And many people do take like a raw apple cider vinegar with some honey.

Got to have a little teaspoon of sugar to help that medicine go down. And that's what I love about kombucha is, you know, she has these organic acids. And it's [00:12:00] more palatable because we are leaving some of that sugar present. Now, we'll talk a little bit more about the sugar in a minute. Here's the other secret power to kombucha tea.

How much research do we have on camellia sinensis, anti cancer properties, right? Anti oxidants. fermentation process is enhancing this nutrient profile. So you have even more vitamin C in your kombucha than in the tea. And it's also breaking down the chemicals that we don't want. So yeah, there can be some fluoride in tea, but it's being broken down through the fermentation process so that it's not passing that on to you.

And, um, you know, it just, fermentation just is this magical, uh, microbial amazing thing that has helped. Humans since the dawn of time preserve our foods as well as keep us healthy. So all and this is why we say kombucha is not an end point. She's an entry into exploring other fermented foods and drinks.

We never say only drink kombucha, right? And you'll be cured, right? That's not how this [00:13:00] works. She's a great support system. She can definitely help in specific situations and She gets you used to craving other salty, uh, sour, yummy foods. Actually, sour and bitter are the flavors of health and digestion, but our food supply has really kind of pushed our palates such that those flavors feel intense or uncomfortable for us.

And again, I'm not saying every meal has to taste that way, but including fermented foods, which were our condiments. There's a reason there's sauerkraut on your Reuben sandwich. It's hard to digest all that meat, but if you have the sauerkraut there, it's going to help. Our condiments used to be fermented.

The original word for ketchup is fermented fish sauce. It also used to be made from mushrooms, and then eventually ended up made from tomatoes, which is what we know it from today, but I know I'm rambling on here, but, uh, because I love fermenting foods and drinks, and I just love, you know, the benefits, the flavors, the excitement they bring to any meal, so don't stop with [00:14:00] kombucha.

Let it be an entry.

Roni: Yeah, I like that phrase of it being an entryway because I can imagine for someone who is maybe turned off by a lot of those more sour, bitter foods, maybe you're somebody who's like, yeah, I could not handle sauerkraut. Kombucha is a much easier entryway because it has that little bit of sweetness from being made with sugar.

Hannah: Well, and the fruit, right? She becomes this vehicle for herbal nutrition and for fun, creative flavor profiles. That's why you'll see... Every fruit you can imagine under the sun has probably got a kombucha out there, but she's also great for savory. So in the book, we have, you know, 260 flavoring recipes, and some of those are like salsa kombucha or mushroom kombucha.

So think about it, right? Vinegar is also something we use in salad dressings. It can be savory. So you can have a lot of fun playing with kombucha once you sort of get the ground rules in place. We can ferment other things. We can ferment coffee. We can ferment yerba mate. We can ferment rooibos. So, it just becomes a really fun, [00:15:00] uh, creative outlet if you're, if you're into that kind of thing.

Roni: great. Okay. So back to the question of, so now we understand why we would want to drink kombucha. So now let's understand more about why we would want to brew it ourselves versus just buying it in the store.

Hannah: Yes, absolutely. So, you know, all fermented foods contain trace amounts of alcohol. Our alcohol laws were set in the 1920s during Prohibition and the Christian temperance movement when they wanted nobody to drink any alcohol at all. So they were set at much tighter restrictions than our cultural counterparts have.

So, for example, in Canada, the restriction is 1. 1 percent alcohol. Here in the United States, it's half a percent. In Mexico, it's 2%. In Europe, it's 1. 2%. Australia, it's 1. 1%. So that half a percent is really hard for kombucha because there's a natural amount of alcohol created, but it's not to get you drunk, right?

So, it's there as a preservative. Think about it like this. When you have a wound, one of the first things you might reach for is [00:16:00] rubbing alcohol. Why? Because it kills microbes on contact, and that's exactly what that alcohol is doing in the kombucha. In fact, it must make alcohol so that then it can convert into those acids.

If we go to the word vinegar, vin agra, bitter wine, so it, the alcohol, right? Red wine vinegar, uh, vinegar is made, but from alcoholic fermentation that then converts into these acetic acids. So there has to be a trace amount of that present. Now, the nice thing is if you, if you're not into that, you can always go to the store and buy them because they've had to restrict their processes.

But in. Adjusting that alcohol level. Sometimes they're removing some of the acid, some of the nutrients that we desire. So if you're wanting that full experience of kombucha and again, we're not necessarily drinking it every day or we're drinking it in small cup sizes. We're not chugging a huge bottle of it.

It's something that you get like this little euphoria rush and it's not just from ethanol. There's [00:17:00] also be vitamins present. So again, when you're filtering a kombucha in order to make it look more palatable, or it has a lighter flavor profile, you're missing out on some of those nutrients present in the yeast because they've had to remove it.

Roni: Okay. So it's a, a filtering process that commercialized kombucha goes through that removes the alcohol, or is it just not as fermented?

Hannah: So there's, there's so many ways to skin the cat, if you will. And I'll also mention I'm president and co founder of Kombucha Brewers International. So we work with the commercial producers around the world. We've established the kombucha code of practice, which is the way we've enshrined traditional fermentation.

However, we also acknowledge that people are going to need to manipulate the product in order to make it shelf stable in order to get a longer shelf life out of it. And in order for it to meet some of these other desired parameters, such as low sugar or no sugar, things like this. And so kombucha can sometimes be made from concentrate.[00:18:00] 

Oftentimes those products are then back sweetened with a monk fruit or a stevia. So if you're looking at the ingredients label and you notice that's there, that's probably what's happened is it's a kombucha from concentrate and we're working on getting a seal program. Just to help people understand that there's these different types of kombucha that exist, so they can choose the one that's right for them, for their family, for their use occasion, and they don't have to constantly wonder, like, is this kombucha something I'm going to enjoy, or is this, you know, something that I'm not going to want to serve to people?

Roni: Yeah, so we've talked to other guests on the podcast who are into, you know, like nourishing traditions and making homemade fermented foods. And some of the things that they've mentioned is that the potency of the probiotic profile is much higher when you are actually making these ferments at home compared to in the grocery store.

Hannah: A thousand percent. And part of that is, you know, so then what we also see are bespoke culture. So this is where instead of using that [00:19:00] wild culture, okay, let's just take a couple microbes, a couple yeast. We see this in yogurt all the time, right? They, they, by, by their own definition, they only have to have, I think, three or four strains to call it yogurt.

Whereas if you're cultivating yogurt, you're going to have 30 strains. Um, you know, and upwards of that. So there can be a loss of diversity. A lot of brands are forced carbonating. So if you're sensitive to that, um, you know, you might notice that you have that feeling in there. Some are dosing with probiotics because there's this annoying.

If there's a not a rule, if there's lack of regulation of a term, which there is no regulation on the term probiotic, it's been regulated through. And so, uh, a lot of brands said we've got probiotics because our organisms, you know, meet a definition of when consumed in a certain amount, confer a health benefit to a person, but because they haven't been through pharmaceutical type clinical trials to validate this one specific strain, then there have been lawsuits.

[00:20:00] And so it, it's a, it's a. It's an eye opening process when you look into consumer product goods. It isn't this like, we make something, and we put it on the shelf, and it's all good. There's so much more going on behind the scenes there. And that's why making it yourself, you're in control of the ingredients.

You control the quality of those ingredients. You control, uh, how much of it you can make. You control, uh, all of those different aspects. And so you can really dial it in. So let's say you want a lighter, sweeter kombucha. Well, you can just harvest it earlier in the process. Let's say you want that full strength, intense flavor.

Well, you can control that by making that stronger product. So it's a, and I get it. We can't make everything, but. Because there's so much time between from when we start the kombucha to when we harvest it, it really is like 15 minutes once or twice a week that you're dealing with it. It's super streamlined and it's fun.

Roni: Yeah. So to continue on that note, why don't you talk a little bit about how someone would get [00:21:00] started brewing their own kombucha at home if they're new to the process?

Hannah: Well, you gotta have a scoby. That's the number one thing because every other ingredient is probably already in your cupboard. You probably have sugar, you probably have tea sitting around, right? We all have A few boxes of tea that we haven't visited in a while, and so really, it's getting that good quality scoby.

And here's the thing. When you make the investment in a quality scoby as opposed to like the cheapest one you can find, it's like everything, right? You pay more for something that's going to have More diversity, that's tested, that's brewed in a safe facility, that is guaranteed, right? And so you get that peace of mind when you're getting a quality SCOBY.

With that quality SCOBY, at Kombucha Camp, you're also getting a cup of really strong starter liquid. Like, if you were to try to drink that liquid, you would probably not find it enjoyable. And that's because it's intended to help your SCOBY grow, reproduce. And that's the amazing thing about SCOBYs, they're infinite abundance in action.

You start growing a scoby, another one's gonna be made. Now you got two scobies. You do another [00:22:00] batch, now you got three scobies. All of a sudden, it's like trouble with troubles. You have too many scobies, you don't know what to do with them. And that's where our book, The Big Book, really helps you. They have so many uses.

You could use it as a face mask. You can pulverize it and put it in the ground and feed it to your soil. You can give it to chickens and other animals. They fight over it. They just instinctively know this stuff is good for them. You can eat it. We have a great recipe for SCOBY fruit leather that people absolutely love.

And SCOBY is basically like psyllium husk. It's insoluble fiber. You don't But it comes through and it sweeps out excess sugars and hormones. So, um, there's a bajillion uses and heck, even if you have to throw it in the garbage, maybe it's helping to break down the landfill so you shouldn't feel bad.

Although a lot of people get very attached to their SCOBIs.

Roni: So then once you get your, your SCOBY, um, do you have to keep it at a certain temperature? Does you, do you need to refrigerate it? I know you don't have to refrigerate it, but I'm just, you know, throwing that up.

Hannah: Yes, totally. Well, and this is the whole thing, right? It's [00:23:00] a cross between a pet and a plant. We know that if we don't water the plant, it's going to die. If we overwater the plant, it's going to die. If we don't feed the pet, it's going to die, right? If we stick it outside in freezing cold temperatures, it's going to die.

So again, it's once we dial in the understanding of what our specific culture needs, which is this warmer temperature. The yeast in kombucha are predominantly Britannomyces bruxillensis for those brewing nerds out there, which is what makes lambics or sour beer. So if our, if we had an analog in the beer world, it'd be a lambic.

Um, and so that yeast likes a warmer temperature. Certainly many people are going to say, Oh, but I brew at a cooler temperature. Sure you can, and it can take a little bit longer, but if you're. And maybe you'll succeed and sometimes it won't. It just depends on your condition. So, um, but if we have the right brewing temperature and we don't want to put it in the fridge for the reason that The microbes like these warmer [00:24:00] temperatures and they're going to go dormant, so if you go immediately from the fridge to brewing a batch, you might get mold because the microbes just aren't at the right temperature, you're like suddenly inundating them with too much food, they're not ready for it, so there really is this relationship you end up cultivating, but once you have it, and in fact it creates this little, uh, microbial biome in your home, People have found that when they move, all of a sudden, their kombucha isn't producing the way they expected, and that's because when you've been doing it in a certain location for a period of time, the microbes are in the wood in your cabinets, the microbes, like, they create their own little microbial cloud that then needs to be reproduced whenever we're moving it to a new location.

Roni: Oh, wow. That's super interesting. I didn't realize that. 

Hannah: Well, we have microbial cloud. Did you know we're like pig pen, except you can't see the dirt circles around our heads. But we do have a unique microbial signature that like our fingerprint can be uniquely identified to us. And so this is where I'm like, build your bacteria [00:25:00] force field. That's why consuming fermented foods is so important is, you know, we literally have the force within us and around us whenever we're leaning into that.

And so that's, that's a great way to build your force field is your fermented foods and drinks. I

Roni: wow. I feel like I'm learning so much right now. I didn't know we have a bacterial force field. Is that why it feels so good to come home after being on vacation?

Hannah: think your microbes are happy as well. And I also think it's part of our ESP. Like we don't totally understand how bacteria and organisms communicate. And well, especially when you have a child, their DNA is still in your body, or you're with a partner, their DNA is in your body. Like, They're sending little signals back and forth, even if you aren't physically in the same room.

It's also, I think, our gut instincts, right? When you meet someone, and sometimes you're like, oh my gosh, this could be my best friend. Like, it's so amazing. And then you meet other people, you're like, you can't quite place it, but there's something a little off. It could be your microbes giving you some [00:26:00] really valuable valuable information and so later you might in your mind logically try to process why this is but sometimes it's instinct and I think that does come from our microbes.

Looking out for us. So that's why we want to have a nice, robust microbiome because then we're even more sensitive to these other, these other bits of information in our environment.

Roni: That's so interesting. Okay. So. Once you have your SCOBY and your proper temperature for brewing your kombucha, do you need to be consistent with the same type of tea that you use every time? Should you, if you start with black tea, should you always use black tea? If you start with green, should you always use green?

Or can you switch it up? What's the protocol for that?

Hannah: So absolutely, you can switch it up. Now, we always recommend if you're switching your tea, use one of those extra scobies. We call it a scoby hotel, which is just a bunch of scobies hanging out in a jar. Now it does need to be refreshed because again, even if it's sitting there. But you ignore it for six months, it might get stagnant, right?

Because it's run out of food and it's just hanging out. It's [00:27:00] not getting mold, which is great, but it still isn't vibrant and dynamic. Um, but we could then take that and put that, like I said before, into coffee, into yerba mate, into green tea. Now here's the thing, all of those substrates, right? So the coffee or the tea or microbial.

Colonies. And so, for example, green tea has more, um, is more antibacterial, and so it might shift the composition of what you're creating. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just something to keep in mind that if you're not seeing the same type of SCOBY growth. So, for example, if we went to rooibos, maybe it won't make a SCOBY right away.

Whereas we've seen things like hibiscus makes a beautiful pink scoping. It's very robust. So there's clearly elements in there that the bacterial cellulose like. And some people will even say, you don't need a scoby. You don't need a scoby. You just need the liquid. And here's what I have to say to that.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. There's a reason, [00:28:00] right? Nature is Innately intelligent, right? She organizes these bodies, microbes into formations that have a specific purpose. So just because you don't understand what that purpose is doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And in fact, Arizona State University has studied this and what they found is the SCOBY is the immune system.

And so do we want to go around throwing, you know, just Kombucha or starter liquid in a jar with sweet tea, with no immune system. Well, we can change our microbial, uh, we can shift our microbes in that way. They may or may not have the same desirable characteristics over time. I'm not saying that they're gonna quote, unquote, go bad or be bad for you, but it can change that over time.

And in fact, a lot of folks who then wanna go into a commercial process, they end up having more issues because it doesn't have the same stability, right? So think about it as like it's a template. It's a template for your ideal harmonized culture. And so when you're putting that template into the new nutrient solution, you're essentially saying [00:29:00] here's how we want everything to reproduce and replicate.

And so using a SCOBY is really important for that as opposed to only using the liquid because I've even had my cultures recently tested the quantities of organisms is very different. And so it's going to change between the actual physical SCOBY versus the liquid. So, um, I really encourage people to use a SCOBY when they ferment because you're just going to have a more consistent, better, healthier, more robust culture and

Roni: Sure. Yeah. Well, it would be like being like, I'm going to make sourdough, but I don't have any sourdough starters. So I'm just going to let my My, uh, flour and water sit around for a couple of days and then I'll bake the bread. It's not going to turn out the same way as if you had a sourdough starter to add to it.

So,

Hannah: A thousand percent. It's just people think, well, the liquid part is the only part that's important, and it's not. The physical part is important as well.

Roni: yeah. Okay. And then when you go to add your sugar into your tea, [00:30:00] is it, um, like a one to one ratio, a two to one ratio?

Hannah: talk about sugar. Okay, because sugar gets a bad rap. And I think, unfortunately, we do this in our society. We're like, sugar's bad, fat's bad, but we're not talking about what types. We're not getting nuanced enough. We're just making a blanket statement without looking at the fact that, I mean, when we're saying sugar, are we talking about something that's been cultivated from a grass for over 5, 000 years, like sugar cane?

Are we talking about, you know, high fructose corn syrup that uses petroleum in the process that's highly extractive and, you know, really not good for you. And, um, so I think we need to clarify what we're talking about. So here we are talking about sugar, which is sucrose, which is a disaccharide, meaning it's made up of two molecules.

And what happens in the fermentation process, because the microbes need both of these elements, is the yeast creates this enzyme called invertase, and it cuts that disaccharide in half. And it turns it into fructose and glucose, both of which have a lower glycemic impact on the body. So the [00:31:00] culture is consuming the sugar, it needs it, it's fuel for it.

And the trace amounts remaining are not the same as if you had, you know, like if you had a cup of kombucha and a cup of, you know, sweet tea, that's going to have a very different impact on your body because it's been pre digested. So it's easier for your body to work with those nutrients. Now, in terms of how much sugar to use, we do recommend one cup per gallon, and this isn't a made up number.

This comes from reading years and years and years of scientific studies of them playing with sugar ratios and seeing how things turn out and from our own experiments where we find, you know, you can go as low as three quarter cup of sugar per gallon. But if you go any lower than that, you're missing out on all these flavor benefits because there simply isn't enough food, right?

Like if you're starving something, it's not going to be able to produce what you're looking for. And so I think the thing to keep in mind is the sugar is not for you. Now, this gets ultra confusing when you're at the grocery store and you're looking at the label and you go, Oh, it says added sugars. Well, I don't want the one with added sugars.

Here's the [00:32:00] unfortunate thing is that the FDA requires if you use sugar in your primary fermentation, even though you're reporting the final grams at the end, And again, it's not sucrose. It has to go in that added sugars category. And so I think a lot of people get confused. So some producers have worked their way around it, where instead of using sugar, they're fermenting fruit juice.

Roni: Hmm.

Hannah: And so it won't say added sugars, but it still had sugar as part of the fermentation process. Now, sometimes it's no added sugars because again, they're doing that concentrate, they're diluting it with water, they're back sweetening with stevia. So there's a couple different ways to get around it. But I just want to remind people that when you're looking at those sugar grams and you look at it on a soda or you look at it on juice, you are not comparing the same thing because these sugars are much easier for your body to absorb.

And again, it's just that little bit of sugar that's going to help you to enjoy the acids that are really doing all of the heavy lifting.

Roni: Okay. That's super helpful. Um, because yeah, there are definitely some brands in [00:33:00] particular that you can look at in the grocery store and be like, okay, I might as well just have a Coke, but that makes a lot more sense that, once again, there's

Hannah: Mexican Coke made with sugar cane or regular Coke with the high fructose corn syrup or aspartame, which, you know, just finally they're raising the alarm about and, you know, like it get quality matters quality over quantity every day of the week, just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's something you want to put in your body and we can make kombucha really inexpensively when we're sourcing our own ingredients and doing it at home.

Roni: Right. Yeah. Cause these big companies have this red tape and stuff that they have to go around and

Hannah: red tape legal issues and pull it like people are like why is kombucha so expensive and it's like it isn't a syrup with a bubbly water that's done in like two seconds right it is a process there's an art it's cultivated it's more similar compare it more to a nice wine Or craft beer. That's really the price point.

We should be observing it up. [00:34:00] And that's again, where the seal is going to help, because if it's from concentrate, obviously it's not taking the same amount of time. So it can have a lower price point if it's pasteurized again, they're skipping a lot of Techniques and art that you have to do to try to control that alcohol more naturally.

And so that's going to have a lower price point. So it just helps to clarify why This kombucha over here is less expensive, but this one's more expensive. And how do I tease that information out?

Roni: Well, there's so many foods in the grocery store that are like that I'm thinking of yogurt right now. There are so many brands of yogurt that are, it seems like they're 50 percent sugar. And so of course that that's going to be less expensive than the one that was, you know, cultivated over months and you know, still might not be as high quality ferment as what you can make in your house.

There was much more quality control put into that one versus the one that's, um, mostly sugar.

Hannah: Well, and I love dairy ferments, but if anyone makes a dairy ferment at home, they sour really quickly. Like to get that shelf life, you have to [00:35:00] manipulate the product because otherwise it would turn so fast. Nobody would enjoy it. But a milk keeper is actually one of the products I recommend to people. If kombucha is not their jam, obviously it's not going to have the acetic and those, some of those other acids, but it's going to be really high in lactic acid.

And it has a lot of microbial strains. And, um, I mean, in fact, it was seeing old people in the caucuses mountains consuming kefir type products or yogurt type products that indicated there's longevity there. So, uh, fermented dairy is something I think that's really beneficial. And most people, I don't know, you probably talked about this in other podcasts, but, uh, aren't.

aren't, uh, dairy intolerant, they're pasteurization intolerant because when we kill the microbes that are inherently present in raw milk that are there to help us digest the lactose, of course it's going to create a product that then isn't, um, good for us. But that said, I do recommend using pasteurized milk to make your milk kefir because it's a more affordable product and now you're re inoculating it with [00:36:00] microbes that are consuming that lactose.

So you're essentially taking an allergenic food. And making it non-allergenic by inoculating it with the milker

Roni: That's a good point. Yeah. I've noticed, uh, for myself that if I drink kefir, it does help me digest other lactose, uh, filled foods.

Hannah: whatever, right? 

Roni: Yeah. It does help me, um, uh, digest other dairy products much easier.

Hannah: Yes. 

Roni: Okay. Um, I feel like we talked about so many things. You've already answered all, all, basically all of the questions that I wanted to ask you.

I know one thing that,

Hannah: well, I just wanted to touch on the two other ferments, so

Roni: yeah. Oh, please do.

Hannah: just John or June, or John, or however you wanna say it. I, we say John rhymes with fun, j u n. is kombucha's raw honey cousin. So for some folks, they don't want the cane sugar. They don't want to refine sugar. Jun is really lovely. Now, of course, honey costs more, so you're going to see a higher [00:37:00] price point, and it has these unique flavor profiles.

So we also have a jun culture. Microbially, it's different from the kombucha culture. So some people are like, well, can I just Do a kombucha, scobie and raw honey. You might, but probably it's going to mold because it isn't ready for that substrate. And so it's not that we can't shift colonies over time through successive batches, but it takes work and effort and patience.

So if you're just wanting to dive right in, Jun is a great ferment. It's, we typically use a green tea or white tea just to give it that lighter flavor profile, but like kombucha, we could use black tea or all other types of different types of teas. But Jun is also a product that's now commercially sold.

And then the other one is water kefir or tbcos. So this is really great for folks who don't like that acidic profile and yet want to get a delicious, um, probiotic beverage into their life. It's a sugar water ferment and they're called kefir grains. They actually look like crystals. They look like really pretty crystals that you're putting into sugar water.

And [00:38:00] it ferments it into this really light, bubbly, refreshing beverage. And you can also start to purchase this commercially as well. I personally find the water kefir to be too sweet for my palate because I really love that kombucha. However, if my kombucha is too sour, it's great to mix the two. And now I'm getting all different types of microbes and balancing the flavor.

But if you have people in your family who for whom the kombucha is too intense. Try the water kefir and the water kefir can ferment all kinds of things. So once we ferment that water kefir, we can take that already fermented water kefir and put it into juice or put it into, um, nut milk or put it into a variety of different substrates where then we're getting that probiotic fermentation benefit.

I don't recommend putting the grains themselves because they aren't always ready for those different substrates, but the fermented water kefir then can ferment a whole variety of things. So we have all, all of these ferments, the kombucha Gen, milk kefir, and water kefir. So if you want to get started with any of those, highly recommend our really awesome products.

They're, they're just, they're happy, they're bubbly. Not like all ferments are going to be like, oh, I don't think it's working or [00:39:00] whatever, you know, and that's where, you know, we're quality information, quality supplies, quality support. So we're going to be there to help, help walk you through your, your confusion or not being uncertain about what's happening or if anything is happening.

Roni: That's great. How, um, let's see, can you buy raw honey at the grocery store or do you need to go more to a local source to get raw honey?

Hannah: Well, I don't know. It depends on the grocery store you're shopping at. But, um, like I go to the co op and I can buy raw honey there. Or you go to your farmer's market, you can get it there. Or maybe you keep bees and you get it there. So raw honey might crystallize on you, which just makes it sometimes a little more challenging to work with.

But we can reliquify it in some warm water and things like that. That is one of those characteristics of raw honey, and it can be hard to find. So you want to read the package or you want to ask the person and just make sure it is raw. It's not that you couldn't use pasteurized honey, but it's missing that colony of microbes that help with the fermentation process.

So we could use pasteurized honey with kombucha because [00:40:00] those microbes then aren't interfering with that fermentation process. So we would call that honey kombucha where you're using a pasteurized honey instead of the sugar. And typically because honey is sweeter, we're using slightly less. So it's like, you pour out one cup, but you don't get it all out because it sticks to the sides.

That's the perfect amount.

Roni: Okay, great. I just wanted to, yeah, kind of clarify because I know that, uh, a lot of traditional store bought honeys are not a raw honey. So.

Hannah: And they have sugar in them, you know, like, or like the olive oil that isn't olive oil, you know, got all kinds of that stuff going on.

Roni: Yeah, exactly. let's see, on our list here we have kombucha cocktails. What, what are we, what are we talking about with that?

Hannah: Okay, so this to me is a little antidote with your poison. Remember how we talked about it makes these, um, these acids that support a healthy liver and this makes it the perfect cocktail mixer because you get to enjoy your buzz and not be miserable later because it helps mitigate a hangover. And even.[00:41:00] 

Look, you know, I've been drinking kombucha a long time. There were, I don't get drunk as much anymore. In fact, I'm not really alcohol right now, but, um, when I did, I would, you know, make my way to the fridge at three in the morning, down a kombucha, go back to bed and wake up with no headache at all. And when you look in like those hangover cure shots or whatever, what's off in there, B vitamins. What's kombucha naturally? B vitamins. And let me just caveat this by saying, you know, the B vitamins in kombucha aren't necessarily in massive doses, but they're there in living form. And what I mean by that is when we try to synthesize a nutrient in a lab, we never get that same chemical structure.

Think of those chemical structures as keys. When you get something that your body has evolved to recognize and use, boom, it can uptake that and use those nutrients immediately. And again, that's why quality over quantity. Um, you know, we get these mega doses of this or that, but it isn't in a form that our body can totally use.

And in fact, it can have [00:42:00] a deleterious effect. We've seen this with some, um, you know, B12. Is that the one for, for MTHFR?

Roni: Potentially,

Hannah: Folic acid, something like this, right? There's folic acid versus folate. Like even the words are kind of confusing, but if you get the synthetic type, you could actually end up creating more issues in your body than if you're getting trace amounts in a natural form.

So kombucha cocktails is this really fun way to enjoy your alcohol, to get a fun buzz, but then not really pay a price on the other end. And in fact, if I have kombucha cocktails, I can have a couple. And not feel horrible. In fact, by the end of the night, I can probably even drive myself home. So I will have enjoyed the little buzz and the ride, but then I will have gotten myself back to a place where, okay, I have, I'm functioning and I can do that.

Um, or it's that great hangover cure if you accidentally overindulge it. But I do think every restaurant should have kombucha cocktails because you can have a slightly higher price point. It's got a premium product and it's a healthy way to consume [00:43:00] alcohol. I mean, I know we probably don't think of alcohol as something that's healthy.

And here's what I would say. Human beings have been consuming alcohol since the dawn of time. How were they doing that? They were fermenting flowers, they were fermenting herbs, right? Of course with sugar and malt and some other things, but they created these low alcohol beverages that are around two percent or so.

To me, it's when we filter out the yeast and the nutrients, when we distill and turn it into a harder, higher Alcohol substance that then we're really creating a controlled substance. And of course, you can have issues and addiction with because it doesn't have the nutritional profile that nature that comes with it when we're naturally fermenting, um, these herbs and things found in nature,

Roni: Yeah, it makes me think of, um, I feel like I heard at some point in high school or something, maybe that like in the middle ages, everybody drank mead because even the kids drink mead because it was safer to drink than the water because at that point in time they had no [00:44:00] control of their water systems and everybody was dumping their Refuge in the water.

So, yeah, but it was totally, but it was totally different from, uh, what we would drink now as mead because it was much lower ABV and, yeah, contained all of these good micro, uh, biota.

Hannah: Exactly right. And I think that, you know, Negus, I think we have a recipe for it in our book. It was this children's Victorian era wine. It was, you know, like wine punch that they would serve at children's birthday parties. And you know, the old added like have a give them a little brandy if they're having a toothache or this or that like alcohol has been a medicine for the longest time and when we're making it with elderberries and infusing it with herbs and different things, it can have that medicinal effect.

And again, when you're taking it in a tincture, you're not. Slogging a whole bottle back. You're just having a little bit and what's the first thing you feel? Ah, you get that like nice relaxation from the alcohol because that's what alcohol does is it reduces stress When it's consumed in the right amounts [00:45:00] and then of course when we have all these other nutrients present Alcohol thins the blood so you absorb that nutrition more easily and that's where I think You know traditional kombucha that has that, you know, maybe one percent Maybe up to two percent if there's a lot of fruit juice in it is really the sweet spot for enjoying kombucha.

And yeah, you might feel a little like, woo, you're getting that B vitamin rush. Um, so a lot of it is the B vitamins. People who supplement with B vitamin shots experience a sort of euphoric feeling. And so that's typically how you can tell you're a little bit depleted in those nutrients is if you get that feeling of euphoria.

I've been drinking kombucha so long. I'm excited when I get that mini kombucha buzz. Um, it's not very often anymore, but. It can still happen, but cocktails are fun, and there's so many flavors, and because kombucha is sour, it like really stands up as a great mixer, plus you're not just putting a bunch of, you know, high fructose syrup or just real sweet treacly type of things in there, and you can create healthier, better for you cocktails when you mix it with kombucha.

Roni: That's a great [00:46:00] idea. I love it. And, um*,* I'm looking forward to trying it this weekend.

Hannah: Yay!

Roni: Okay. So, uh, before we go, why don't you tell everybody how they can, where, what your website is, where they can find you online, all of that good stuff.

Hannah: Awesome. We are Kombucha Camp, camp with a K because I'm cute and clever over here. Yes, those were all Ks. But, uh, kombuchacamp. com. We've got supplies, information, and all the support you could need. And then if you are like someone who's dabbling or who wants to learn more about the commercial side, kombuchabrewers.

org is where we do all the KBI stuff. You can read the code of practice and kind of see what we're up to and how we defend and protect traditional kombucha along with. Because I get this all the time. You got the purists are like, we're only one way to make kombucha. And I'm like, guys, we got to live in the future.

We don't just want the hippies drinking kombucha. We need everybody drinking kombucha. We need all kinds of kombucha. And then our book, the big book of kombucha, fantastic resource. Your library probably has it. You can also get it on Kindle on Amazon or at our store. Be happy to sign a [00:47:00] copy for you. So, definitely come check us out at kombucha camp and let us know you heard us from plan to eat.

Roni: Yeah. That sounds great. Well, uh, as long as there's nothing else that we missed that you want to mention, I'm

Hannah: Well, we're on all the social channels, so there's like free videos on YouTube. I do a Mama Monday, which we'll have to invite you on, uh, Roni on Instagram. So there's lots of ways in which you can connect with us on social. We're on all of 'em. I wanna say Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, . We're YouTube, LinkedIn, facebook, of course.

Roni: Well, thanks so much for joining me today, Hannah. I learned a lot and it's been such a pleasure. Thanks

Hannah: Thank you Roni. Don't forget to trust your gut.

Roni: As always, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode, you can find links to all of kombucha camps, social channels, website, all of the things and the episode description. And if you'd like to support the Plan to Eat podcast, please share this episode with somebody who you think would love [00:48:00] to listen to it. And subscribe to the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. 

We will see you again in two weeks with a new episode thanks again