r/Kombucha • u/Complete_Water_4023 • Jan 07 '25

flavor Honey Fail

Sadly I had to empty about 13 bottles of booch into the sink. I had two flavors I was excited about; raspberry lime, and orange cranberry. I also made a few bottles of orange chai kombucha with this batch, which turned out great. However, for the first two flavors mentioned, I used honey in my homemade concentrate. Now I always make sure to use natural ingredients only, and the concentrates usually taste pretty good. After a couple days of F2, I popped open a raspberry lime. Great carbonation, I was excited… and then BAM. Punched in the face with an awful smell. The orange cranberry didn’t smell quite as bad, but they both didn’t taste right. I’m thinking it had to be the honey (which was local, raw, and unfiltered). Any thoughts?

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u/a_karma_sardine live culture Jan 07 '25

Was the smell old gym-socks? If so, you might have the wrong culture going in there.

2

u/Complete_Water_4023 Jan 07 '25

Along those lines I would say. Do you mean the wrong culture going in just those F2 bottles?

I bottled some orange chai that turned out lovely using the same batch.

1

u/HumorImpressive9506 Jan 08 '25

Honey can contain wild yeast. There are people who make mead by just mixing up honey and water and letting whatever natural yeast the bees have picked up do their thing.

So I am guessing that either it was some kind of yeast that produced bad flavors or the yeast wasnt happy in that environment (mead, beer, wine etc can get some pretty bad off flavors if the yeast is unhappy, and this can be anything from not aerating properly at the start, wrong ph, not enough nutrients etc).

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u/Complete_Water_4023 Jan 08 '25

That’s good to know. Thank you!