On 04/02/2021 20:44, David Rance wrote:
On Thu, 4 Feb 2021 12:40:08 Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
David RanceÂ* wrote:

I've done a lot of reading around about making kombucha and one thing
they all emphasise is that one *cannot* use a vinegar mother to make
kombucha successfully, but one must use a SCOBY - which is a similar
sort of thing - but they don't exactly tell you why.

I doubt very much that the commercial vinegar had any effect; the
acetobacter (plus lactobacillus and many others) would have come from
the air or skins.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Although I have an almost empty bottle
of Waitrose malt vinegar and I noticed the other day that it has grown a
mother. Whether that mother is any good I would doubt!

Â*I have made very good cider without adding any yeast.

I used to make cider without adding yeast. While some years I produced
some good cider, in other years it wasn't so good, and so I generally
add a cider yeast these days in order to get a fairly consistent result.
Doesn't cost much, especially where up to twenty gallons are concerned
(though the yield is usually more like ten gallons).

My guess is that they say don't use a vinegar mother because kombucha
needs a different balance.Â* In your case, it will evolve differently
in apple juice open to the air and tea+sugar in a closed container.
I make no assertion about the accuracy of this page, but it's plausible.

https://www.culturesforhealth.com/le...acteria-yeast/

Thanks for that link. I hadn't seen it before and it looks interesting.

David

What do you do with 10 to 20 galls of vinegar a year?