Kombucha Vinegar – From Fermented Tea Drink to Delicious Salad Dressing

How to use sour kombucha

The step from fermented tea drink to delicious vinegar is really not complicated. If you have produced too much kombucha, it does not have to be thrown away immediately. With a little patience, your tea drink will turn into delicious vinegar in 4 to 10 weeks. This tastes similar to apple cider vinegar without any additional spices. Here, too, there are no limits to the flavors you can create.

How is kombucha vinegar made?

First, you simply set up a new batch for fermentation. How to do this in detail is explained again here for fermentation newcomers.

The tea mushroom now simultaneously becomes your vinegar mother. Kombucha is made from a so-called starter liquid, tea, sugar, and with the help of a tea mushroom (symbiosis of yeasts and bacterial cultures). During fermentation, acid is produced. The longer the fermentation lasts, the more acid is produced. The added sugar ferments more and more over time. To make vinegar from it, it simply has to ferment much longer. Since this process can extend over several weeks, you need a little more patience than with the usual fermentation of 7 to 14 days. Normally, the right vinegar maturity is reached between 4 and 10 weeks.

When is your kombucha vinegar ready?

As with kombucha, this cannot be said in general terms. We recommend a fermentation of 4 weeks first. After that, the fine-tuning can take place. The liquid should be brought to a pH value of about 2. To do this, you can add one tablespoon of sugar every 2 weeks over a period of 6 weeks. This helps the tea mushroom with fermentation and you will get the very acidic environment faster. In between, you can of course always taste it with a small spoon to see if the vinegar is appealing to your taste.

Refine kombucha vinegar with spices

Add even more flavor to your vinegar with spices! There are no limits to the flavors here. We recommend storing the refined vinegar for another 2-3 weeks in a closed bottle in a cool, dark place.

Possible ingredients for refinement:

• Thyme
• Mint
• Oregano
• Basil
• Garlic
• Onions
• Shallots
• Lemon peel

FAQs

Can the used scoby be used for a new kombucha batch after making kombucha vinegar?

The tea mushroom can then continue to be used for the fermentation of further kombucha without any problems.

How long does the bottled vinegar keep?

For homemade kombucha vinegar, even when stored in the refrigerator, no general unlimited shelf life can be given. We still recommend not storing it for longer than 2 years and consuming it before then.