Experimenting with different flavors is for me, one of the most fun parts of home brewing kombucha. After creating and tasting dozens of different brews, peach has emerged as one of my favorite kombucha flavors to make.
Peach kombucha is kombucha that has been flavored during the brewing process of second fermentation with peach slices, chunks, puree, or juice. The peach gives the kombucha a sweet and tangy flavor that nicely compliments the strong bitter, sour, and vinegary flavors of the kombucha.
In this article I'll quickly cover the process by which kombucha is made, and then give you all the equipment and ingredients you need to make peach kombucha and teach you how to make it in 5 simple steps. Let’s get going!
What is Kombucha
Kombucha is a probiotic drink made from fermented tea that has become quite popular in recent years due to its great taste and many health benefits such as improved digestion and gut health, detoxification, and immune system strengthening.
How Kombucha is Made
Before we get into the peach kombucha recipe, I think it’s important that if you’re a first time kombucha home brewer you understand the overall process by which kombucha is made.
All booch begins as sweet tea. What turns this sweet tea into sweet and sour probiotic kombucha is a living culture of bacteria. This culture of bacteria, known as a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast), eats the sugar and caffeine from the sweet tea and produces acids, carbon dioxide, and alcohol.
Once it has eaten enough sugar to make the kombucha bitter tasting, the SCOBY is removed and the 1st fermentation is complete. At this point the kombucha can be drunk, but it's not carbonated or flavored yet.
The carbonation and flavor is added in a 2nd fermentation. During this stage, the kombucha is sealed in glass fermenting bottles that are filled with fruit, juice, or herbs for flavoring.
Over the course of a few days, the kombucha in the bottles develops carbonation and flavor. It’s then refrigerated and ready to be drunk!
What You Need to Make Peach Kombucha
Before you get to brewing it’s important that you have all the necessary equipment and ingredients to make kombucha. You’ll need all of the following to make a healthy and tasty peach kombucha:
Equipment:
Ingredients:
If you don’t have some of the equipment or ingredients above yet, you can just click on the item to view my favorite one on Amazon.
You also can check out the article I wrote on The Top 5 Things You Need to Start Brewing Kombucha to learn more about each ingredient or piece of equipment.
Once you have everything you need, it’s time to get brewing!
Peach Kombucha Recipe (1 Gallon)
Equipment:
Ingredients:
1 Gallon of Water 2 Tablespoons of Loose Leaf Black or Green Tea or 8 Tea Bags
1 Cup of Sugar 2 Cups of Starter Tea
SCOBY Peaches or Peach Juice
1. Brew Sweet Tea
Bring a few cups of water to just under a boil. Then remove the water from the heat and mix in 1 cup of sugar. Next steep 2 tablespoons of loose leaf tea or 8 tea bags in the sugar water for 30 minutes.
Set aside the sweet tea to cool.
Grab 2 cups of starter tea from a previous kombucha brew.
If you’re making 1 gallon of peach kombucha, just use the instructions above.
If you want to make 2 gallons of peach kombucha, just multiply the amount of sugar, tea, and starter tea by two.
If you’re using an irregularly shaped container, or don’t want to brew your peach kombucha to the gallon, you can use the numbers below.
To make 1 cup of kombucha you need:
0.0625 Cups of Sugar
0.375 Teaspoons of Loose Leaf Yerba Mate Tea
0.125 Cups of Starter Tea
Just multiply these numbers by the # of cups of peach kombucha you want to make and you'll have the right amount of each ingredient.
Although a cup of sugar per gallon of kombucha seems like a lot, remember that this sugar is food for our SCOBY. In the end, most of this sugar will be eaten and converted into acids and gases, and the finished kombucha will only have 2-6g of sugar per 8 ounces..
2. Add SCOBY and Starter Tea
Next we are going to add the sweet tea to our brewing vessel and fill up whatever space remains with water. You can use cold water to help the tea cool down faster.
Once the tea has cooled down to room temperature, add in the SCOBY and starter tea.
Starter tea is 2 cups of kombucha from a previous brew which will kick off the acidity of a new brew. If this is your first time brewing kombucha and you bought your SCOBY online, it will come packaged in starter tea.
If you've brewed before and didn't save any starter tea from a previous batch you can use a store bought bottle of unflavored kombucha or a splash of distilled white vinegar to give the brew its initial acidity.
It’s important to wait until the tea has cooled down to room temp to add the SCOBY because liquid that’s too hot or too cold can shock it.
3. 1st Fermentation
After the sweet tea, SCOBY, starter tea, and water have all been combined in the brewing vessel, cover the top of the container with cloth or an old tea shirt and secure it with a rubber band. This will keep fruit flies and other bugs out.
Do not seal the jar with a lid or anything airtight, since we need oxygenated air to be able to flow in and out of the container to keep the SCOBY alive and functioning.
Wait 7-10 days for the SCOBY to ferment the sugar and nutrients in the tea into alcohol and healthy acids. Remember that the longer the brew ferments, the more sugar will be eaten and the more bitter it will taste.
Taste test the brew every day with the goal of reaching that perfect sweet spot between sweet and sour. Once it has reached a bitter enough taste for your liking, the first fermentation is complete.
4. 2nd Fermentation
We now have kombucha, but it’s not yet carbonated nor flavored with peaches.
To do this we’re going to first save 2 cups of kombucha as starter tea for future brews.
Next you need to add the peach into the empty glass brewing bottles.
You can either buy a whole peach and chop it into slices or cubes, or you can use Peach Juice. If you’re going to chop up your own peach, make sure that you cut it up really well since the more surface area and juice available, the better carbonation and flavor you’ll get.
Figuring out how much peach to use can be difficult and may take you a few brews to get just right. Because peach is so sweet and can easily overpower the natural bitter flavor of the kombucha I would start out with only filling up the bottles with an inch or too of peach or peach juice, and then adjust from there in future brews.
Quick tip: Adding a few slices of ginger root into the bottles along with the peach will add some really tasty spiciness to the sweet peach flavor in addition to adding healthy antioxidants.
Once the fermenting bottles have the peach in them, transfer the kombucha, probably via funnel, from the large container into all the bottles, filling them up all the way.
If you use frozen peaches, allow them to thaw before adding them to the bottles since the extreme cold can shock the yeast and bacteria culture in the kombucha.
Also be sure to save 2 cups kombucha for starter tea for your next brew.
The bottles with kombucha and peaches will now sit at room temperature for 4-6 days. During this time you can make some more sweet tea and start a new brew of kombucha if you want. Then ideally, by the time you’re done drinking the current brew, the next batch will be finished.
5. Refrigerate and Drink Up
After the 4-6 days have passed, refrigerate the unopened bottles of peach flavored kombucha. The cold air in the refrigerator will slow down the fermentation process and calm the carbonation, decreasing the likelihood of an explosion when you open them.
If when you open the bottles there isn't enough carbonation, you can place them back at room temperature for a few days and they’ll resume the fermentation process and develop more carbonation.
After the bottles have been chilled, it's time to drink up! Congrats on making your very own peach kombucha! Enjoy!