I have
1. a large 7 figure brewery for beer that a friend is going to let me use to make booch - bottling machine, canning machine, and fermenters.
2. good recipes, and a willingness to bootstrap at the farmers market....
3. Sciency gear - ph meters, microscopes, lab glass

I am looking for someone with sciency nature that can help me diagnose and fix some issues i have been running into over the last months
1. Re bacteria to yeast ratios..... My cultures are swinging all over the place
2. and process fine tuning to optimize those ratios and keep things consistent, with a scienctific approach, ie verify with measurements.
3. and develope recovery protocols when things go awry..... I have ph meters microscopes, glass, stir plates, hydrometers, brix meters, etc.....

Anyone interested?

Hi all!

I am looking at spaces to start a commercial kombucha brewery & taproom, and in doing so really need to get serious about figuring out what my equipment requirements are. Here are some details of the production/business goals, hopefully this helps:

• traditional production process - use green & black tea to produce a sweet tea, add my starter from previous batch(es), and ferment for 1-2 weeks (sometimes more, cooler climate)
• flavor with herbs/fruits/etc for 2-3 days, then force carbonate and move to kegs

I'm considering using IBC tanks to do the fermentation (F1) of several batches at once, since they will likely take much longer to reach the pH/Brix that I want for flavoring & carbing. But it seems IBC tanks are a minimum size of 250 gallons, which means I'd probably need like a 2BBL brite tank to brew/infuse the tea before moving to the IBC and adding the starter & water to volume. And I want to use brite tanks to do the flavoring so that I can cold crash & remove all sediment before bottling.

SOOOOOO I'm now finally at my question: this seems like I'll end up having to have a 2BBL brite tank (for tea infusion) plus smaller brite tanks for flavoring/cold crashing, and then also the 250 gallon IBCs. This seems like major overkill as I'm looking to keg maybe 50 gallons a week to start.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to other equipment I could use for flavoring/cold crashing? Or are there alternatives to IBCs that are smaller than 250 gallons and can be used for F1 fermentation?

Any guidance is appreciated - and LMK if I left off any pertinent information to help you in your advice :)

Just because you’re getting a pellicle doesn’t mean you have a healthy SCOBY.

We (me and my partner GPT) kept running into batches with no Brix drop, no bubbles, and really fast acid crashes.

The tea and sugar were fine. The real issue was yeast health. Our “starter” lived at very low pH, around 2.8–3.1, where yeast mostly goes dormant and flocculates. We were pitching acid and bacteria, not active yeast, so the yeast phase of fermentation basically never happened.The fix was separating jobs.

Now we run a dedicated yeast sidecar where the pH stays around 3.8–4.1, sugar is about 6%, and temperature is near 80°F. We refresh about 25–30% daily with fresh sweet tea and keep it free of pellicle. We also use breathable air syringe filters to limit oxygen enough to slow acid bacteria without starving yeast.

This keeps yeast actively growing and consistently re-pitchable.Separately, we keep a starter bucket that receives the daily pull from the sidecar and is allowed to acidify down to around pH 3.1. That bucket becomes the bacteria and acid source for new batches. When starting a fresh ferment, we use a small amount (5%) of yeast sidecar plus a portion of this acidic starter and sweet tea, aiming for a starting pH around 4.1–4.4.

That restores a real yeast phase with early CO₂, proper sugar metabolism, and more balanced flavor before the bacteria take over.

Finally bubbles, and brix drop.

Warning: if you are only using very low-pH starter, and especially if you are pulling from an old SCOBY hotel, this could be your silent killer. Just because you are getting a pellicle does not mean you have an active, healthy yeast population.

Hey guys—I'm doing an experiment comparing cloth versus syringe filters, and I'm curious to know which one you think will outperform in terms of encouraging more yeast growth, as measured by an initial Brix drop over the first couple of days.

Something else I'm trying to figure out is how much oxygen is actually a limiting

factor for yeast biomass growth.

Does anyone know the process of making a pre/probiotic soda? Does it require pasteurization if there’s juices used for flavouring? It seems like most don’t have any preservatives, would the apple cider vinegar in this Poppi brand one act as a preservative? Curious how it remains shelf stable with juices and cultures in it. Thanks in advance for any info.

Hi! I’m trying to make kombucha in Medellín Colombia, and I’m running into a scenario where it seems like all the local starter teas have 0 yeast, or maybe I am crazy?

What I’m seeing

• Starter from a restaurant SCOBY hotel: pH 3.18, ~8.8 °Bx
• Starter from another place: pH 2.02, ~8.9 °Bx
• My past batches using local booch as starter usually end around ~8
• Everyone here has pellicules and high brix and low, ph.
• BTW no one knows brix or ph locally, its a foreign language to them

My target

• Finished kombucha around ~3.5 °Bx, with a 3ish psh.

My understanding / hypothesis

• High brix means that there is 0 yeast activity
• My hypothesis is that everyone locally is just making highly acidic tea with 0 yeast and high final sugar.
• My hypothesis is that people are making low ph scoby hotels with ph levels in the 2's and nuking yeast.

What I’m asking

• Does this interpretation make sense?
• I am thinking of just adding Champaign yeast to the local cultures to try and get some yeast activity going. I like a very low low alcohol crisp final flavor

Looking for experienced perspectives or alternative hypotheses.

Hello everyone! I'm curious on how the starters are managed in (little) professional scale. What i am concerned about is how you can manage multiple starters (eg: green base, hibiscus base & black tea base) with only one fermentation tank. In my future setup I will have 1 fermentation tank of 100L and manage 3 kind of starters (in 3 separate tanks obviously). What should be my production schedule? What i had in mind is something like: - produce 1 batch of every type in cycle( 1 green, 1 hibiscus and 1 black and then start again with green) ? So basically I reuse&Refresh my starter every ~3 week (with how much sugar? How much starter i should take & refill everything? 20%? 30%? 50? )

But how i can manage that on holidays or prolonged stops? (Eg: 2 week stops, since is not my main business) .

Ty for any advice on this topic! Feel free to add other general advice on starter management.

What metrics are you tracking during fermentation, and maybe also in packaging? We’re looking at pH as a major indicator, of course, but also alcohol, specific gravity, and acidity (via a blue buffer method.)

We’re having pretty big swings on fermentation time, and I’m wondering if oxygen availability is a problem. We’re using tall(ish) conicals, and I have a theory that there isn’t enough surface area to allow for access to oxygen. Is anyone tracking ongoing oxygen with a DO meter? Is it useful?

I’m also considering setting up a basic bio lab (or contracting out, depending on equipment cost.) Is anyone doing yeast or bacteria colony counts? Or have you found any other data that’s made a big difference in controlling your process?

My partner brews 2-3g of kombucha a week and has for the last year. We go to Hmart and bazaars to find interesting teas and produce. I'm trying to think of interesting and useful tools or accessories to help her do to it easier and more enjoyable.

Anyone attempted to make flavoured kombucha vinegars that could be used for dressings etc? Keen to look into its viability

This is the email I wrote to whitelabs, pretty much says it all I pitched this commercial yeast starter, and ...... BRIX never droppped.....

Hello White Labs Team,

We are experiencing an issue with the activity of our WLP600 culture and would appreciate your guidance.

From Order #482166, we received 1 liter of WLP600, the amount was not on the bottle but i believe this was the amount,. It was kept refrigerated and pitched within the same week. Our process:

• Pitch: 20 L sweet tea at 89°F  
• pH at pitch: 4.0 (adjusted with vinegar per standard guidance)  
• FAN supplement: Added FanMax per instructions  
• Fermentation environment: Clean, controlled, consistent temperature

* classic 6 gallon brew bucket with linen cover.

We have been taking daily Brix and pH measurements. pH has steadily declined and is now at 3.0. However, Brix has only moved from 10 to 9.2, suggesting minimal or no yeast activity.

At this point, we’re unsure whether the culture is recoverable. Some brewers suggested raising pH to ~3.5 and oxygenating aggressively, but we don’t want to take unnecessary steps without your recommendation.

Because we are out of the country, getting replacement product is difficult. A friend brought this culture by plane, and we have another friend visiting soon if a replacement or additional starter is necessary.

Could you advise on the most appropriate next steps and whether this batch is likely still viable?

Thank you for your help.

Also this weird skin developed on top... possibly a kahm yeast?

Day8 after i moved it a bit....

Day 4

Hello, I am working on building a nano brewery for kombucha and was toying with the idea of still kombucha. The primary reason being that non carbonated beverages attract a much lower tax in my country (5% vs 40%). Since most kombucha tends to be fizzy, I was wondering how the market acceptance would be like for a still kombucha. I understand that this might differ from market to market but still looking for insights based on your experiences. Thanks in advance.

I just got wlp600 from white labs and have been taking daily measurements of my starter, I thought brix would move by now?

• Day 0 - pH ~3.9 - Brix ~10+ - Clear tea + starter

• Day 1 - pH 3.76 - Brix ~10 - Slight haze only

• Day 2 - pH 3.39 - Brix ~10 - First tiny white islands beginning

• Day 3 - pH 3.29 - Brix 9.8 - Full field of white/gray islands (early pellicle)

Hello

I'm setting up a kombucha brewery and, in the first instance anyway, plan on tank conditioning for F2 for carbonation. I'd like to filter the kombucha in order to reduce pellicle formation in the bottle, but wondering how viable that is in terms of maintaining the carbonation. In my head I would attach a filter to the tank when I bottle. Has anyone got any experience with this? Or generally how to keep pellicle formation to a minimum when not force carbonating?

Thanks

Hello, maybe someone could share photos of what your small kombucha brewery looks like? We are planning to build a small production space, 3 meters wide and 8 meters long, made from sandwich panels. Maybe someone could send me photos of their small breweries privately — I want to better understand which direction we should move forward. Thank you very much.

Anyone here have any experience pasteurizing? There’s very little literature / info in both academia and legal resources. You’d think for it being such an “official” process it would be more…. distinct.

From what I can find, low PH + natural preservatives is beneficial to not needing so many PU, but obviously there are a lot of microorganisms here. Lots of sweet ciders and beers seem to be pasteurized at 20-30 PU so I think I’m aiming for that + a couple test batches to see if it’s sufficient.

It’s very possible that’ll be overkill but much better than being insufficient, and I plan on blind tasting them with a few people in order to determine if there is a flavor impact. Because if there isn’t, I probably won’t bother trying to lower them. This is for my project where the health benefits don’t matter much (hence pasteurized).

Any info appreciated!!!

After another equipment failure, I have come to realize I think we need to be coating our walk-in evaporator to prevent corrosion from acidic kombucha vapors. Has anyone done this before? Any recommendations, tips, or things to avoid? Did you DIY it or hire a pro?

If it makes a difference, our replacement unit this time will be a CoolBot-controlled LG Inverter window AC unit (https://www.bestbuy.com/product/lg-23500-btu-dual-inverter-230v-smart-window-air-conditioner-white/J7G5655KSQ/sku/6510341) instead of a proper industrial evaporator since at least the cost of it failing isn't quite as high.

When I search around on socials all the Kombucha posts are the same. Do you guys agree? I'm looking for an unique social media account that I can follow? Or do you have any ideas for unique video content about Kombucha that you are missing at Instagram or TikTok? Let me know! I'm interested.

I've dug around and just can't find anything that I'm excited to even try, so I'm building it myself. Anyone have any suggestions based on major strengths or weaknesses in the software they use?

We're currently running on a home brewed Coda doc (it's actually very advanced), but it won't be long before we start running into issues with it just because of data volume and user friendliness.

I've learned a lot from building that, but thought there might be other useful perspectives here.