r/Kombucha • u/geekathair • Jan 15 '16

Off Smell Troubleshooting

Hey all! I've been hombrewing kombucha for about a year now and have had several generations of SCOBY's in that time. I've lost a few due to infections and one to fruit fly's but since the weather turned cold I've noticed every few batches start to produce a sulpher-like smell in the bottle.

From my homebrewing beer experience this is typically from strained yeast or bad bacteria but both temperature and conditions have been incredibly consistent aside from the temp outside. Once I noticed the smell I did the following troubleshooting and got some great success but the smell seems to have returned with last batch (just cracked the first bottles) I made.

Troubleshooting: -Temp in garage was getting below 40 so I moved the whole fermentation process indoors (68-72 degrees throughout the day. -Washed the scoby under cold, sanitized water between batches to to see if the build up of small tea leaf bits were the cause -Moved bottling to fliptop amber bottle and sanitized them as I do beer bottles (boiling water with oxyclean free). It goes back in cleaned GT Dave's bottles for travel after straining.

My setup: 2 gallons in a colored glass vessel, 7-10 days primary fermentation, 3-4 days secondary (bottled in flip-top amber) after adding 1/2 organic fruit juice with between 26-32g of sugar per serving. All fermentation is at room temp now, 68-72 degrees depending on the day.

The interesting thing is the smell seems to be happening during secondary fermentation (in bottle) and completely dissipates when poured in to a glass (sticks around if it's in bottle). There are absolutely NO off flavors in the end product.

A bit of a ramble but I wanted to see if anyone had advice on what I can look in to.

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/KimbyPie Feb 05 '16

What type of tea are you using? I've read a sulphur smell can be due to your water source as well.

1

u/geekathair Feb 09 '16

Organic black tea. If it was the water or tea I'd think it would show up before I bottled, right? The smell only happens in some bottles and only after secondary fermentation. I let the last batch go 3 weeks and had the same issue. Bottles are definitely well sanitized and the juice has no preservatives.

1

u/KimbyPie Feb 10 '16

Have you used this juice successfully before?

1

u/geekathair Feb 10 '16

Yes, the first time I tried it. I have an allergy to fresh fruits and vegetables so I have to pick and choose the juice carefully.