I Got the 'Bootch

Kombucha.

Do you brew?

I DO!

What is kombucha? Kombucha is a lactofermented beverage made from tea that is rich in probiotics and antioxidants and is known for curing everything from digestive problems to gray hair to cancer. Most people note just *feeling better* after drinking it. Kombucha is made by introducing a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) to sweetened, cooled tea and letting them hang out for 7-10 days. Brewing kombucha is honestly, ridiculously easy. The hardest part is obtaining a SCOBY. They can be purchased online, made from a bottle of commercial kombucha or given to you be another brewing buddy. I made mine from a bottle of GTs kombucha. Pour it into a bowl, put a towel over it, leave it alone for a week or so. Eventually a SCOBY will grow.

When you brew LOTS of kombucha for a LONG time you gets LOTS of SCOBYs. Everytime you brew you get another one. Eventually you wind up with a “SCOBY hotel” that you have no idea what to do with but have to feed sweet tea like it was another pet.


My SCOBY hotel. There’s no pool.

Most of the time when I brew kombucha It’s a two part process. While brewing the next batch, I’m also bottling the previous. Here are my two brewing vessels, a one gallon and a two gallon glass jug.


Kombucha ready for bottling.

I find it easiest to first brew so that the tea has some time to cool before the vessels are ready.

First, you have to make tea. I begin by boiling 2 gallons (give or take) of water.


water in a pot. bam.

Once the water is boiling, I add 8 tea bags and 2 cups of sugar. We want to make kinda strong, sweet tea. I use 4 bags of green and 4 bags of black tea. Feel free to experiment with different kinds of tea but don’t use anything that is herbal or that may contain essential oils. It could damage the SCOBY and the SCOBY is your friend. Love her and feed her and she’ll take care of you. Also, speaking of taking care of your SCOBY, stick to plain old sugar. You may substitute with other kinds of sugar (for example sucanat) but don’t use honey. Honey is antibacterial and it will kill your SCOBY.

So anyway, once the water is boiling, dump in 2 cups of sugar and 8 tea bags.



Stir it all together and let it steep and cool. I put the top on to keep germies out but that’s totally counter productive to getting it cool. Let it cool for a few hours. Normally I forget about it at this point until I come into the kitchen the next morning. It’s good and cool by then.

At this point, I turn my attention to bottling. So here we are with 2 finished big jugs of Kombucha.



You can see the SCOBY at the top of the smaller jug. We’re just going to decant this into many smaller jugs for the second fermentation.

These should be enough for 3 gallons of kombucha. First we have to take off the SCOBY. I then pour the kombucha into the jug shown at the top of this photo to pour into the bottles. If you flavor your kombucha, leave a little room at the top. I flavor mine mostly with frozen fruit. I also use dried elderberries for elderberry kombucha. That, along with pineapple, are my favorites!



Once you’ve added your fruit, cap it and leave it out for a second fermentation. The second ferment allows for flavoring and also allows carbonation to build up. The longer it sits out, the more carbonation. I leave mine out for 2 days. Be careful with fresh or frozen fruit, I wouldn’t leave it out longer than 3 days.


from l to r – elderberry, blueberry, raspberry, pineapple

I’m always amazed by the colors when I bottle kombucha. Above picture was after about 20 minutes. I don’t use a lot of fruit – a few chunks of frozen, organic fruit, and it gives these vivid, beautiful colors.

When decanting into bottles, make sure you leave a cup or so of brewed kombucha to feed the next batch. I usually leave a little more than that, depending on how many bottles I have clean.



Now that that’s done and your kombucha is cooled, we just add it to this, plop the SCOBY on top and let it hang out for a week or so. Make sure to cover it with something breathable – a few layers of paper towels or a clean, white towel. The shorter the ferment, the sweeter. The longer the ferment, the more purported health benefits.

So that’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Do you enjoy kombucha? What are your favorite flavors?

Just Another Day in Paradise

We’re getting into a kind of routine around the Brown-stead. Get up with Little and wake up Big. Let the chickens out and do their chores with Big and with Little on my back. Send Big in to get ready for school while I weed the garden and stand around looking at things and breathing.

Like my boots?

During the day I play with Little, bother the chickens, clean, cook, all that fun stuff.

Take pictures of our shoes…you know, the normal.

We eat dinner, I get Little to bed, Mr. Farmer Brown and I go close up chicken shop and watch something stupid on TV.
Big plays outside with her friends.
It’s simple. It’s suburban. It’s mundane and boring.
It’s paradise.

There are eggs in paradise, right?

The Necessity of Anonymity

The Necessity of Anonymity

They’re running from me.

Our chickens are here! My ladies are lovely, although terrified of us. We have 4 laying hens that are about 1 year old. Two Buff Orpingtons and Two Easter Eggers. It’s funny that the two pairs seem to follow each other around.

Buff Orpington

Unfortunately, the town that I live in does not share my infatuation with small scale homesteading or, specifically, chickens. When I inquired as to why, I was told noise. BOOOOO stupid town that I live in. Unfortunately, the town is run by elderly busy bodies with very little imagination that are pretty set in their ways. It’s unlikely that by going to the town I would change their mind, instead it would put their beady little eyes on me and everything I want to do. So, instead of going before the town saying pretty pretty please, we decided to do what we wanted on the land that we own. (Insert further rant about “THE MAN” here)

Big feeds a chicken

All of this hopefully explains my “Farmer Brown” alias and why my beautiful girls are called Big and Little. I know some bloggers make up names but I find it confusing, especially as a new reader.  I understand that this by now way guarantees anonymity and that anyone who truly wanted to know who I was could easily find out. However, it makes me feel better. Seems foolish to do something not allowed and then go on the internet spelling it out, right?
So please, if you know me, please refrain from using my name on here or my girls’ names. Also, my picture was drawn by a good friend, Christine DeRosa who is ridiculously talented, right?
My ladies need names. Any suggestions? Whenever I think of them I hear Beastie Boys in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naf5uJYGoiU

Garden Walk Through the Eyes of a 10 Year Old.

Last week we went on a garden walk at the Museum Garden at the Accokeek Foundation. The Accokeek Foundation is 200 acres of park on the Potomac River that, “serves as an outdoor classroom for educational programs about land conservation, historic preservation, sustainable agriculture, and environmental stewardship.” It’s open dusk to dawn 365 days a year. They have a colonial farm, heritage livestock, an organic Ecosystem Farm, walking trails, cool activities – it’s a pretty interesting place.

We went for a Garden Walk of their Museum Garden which holds a variety of plants – native beds, a small permaculture bed, sundries, medicinal and culinary herbs etc. The idea is that each bed is supposed to convey an idea in gardening – an exhibit if you will. Farmer Dan led us around, explaining everything well with the help of Molly, The Community Outreach and Education Coordinator. Molly is amazing. I need her to come to my wild backyard and tell me what all the things growing back there are and how I can use them. I’m afraid to get rid of anything because I’m pretty sure everything is SOMETHING and I’d hate to find out too late I ripped out something incredibly useful!

So we’re walking, we’re learning. Ten minutes in I’m wishing I’d brought something to take notes on because there’s so much to learn. First off, I’m doing the three sisters thing all wrong. I planted everything at once. You’re supposed to plant the corn, then the squash, then the beans. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes. Also, comfrey. Need to grow the comfrey. It’s BEAUTIFUL!

Isn’t it pretty!

So anyway, we’re walking, we’re learning. We’re ooing and aahing and sniffing and tasting and asking. It’s awesome. But then Little decides she’s DONE. So, while trying (unsuccessfully) to calm her, I handed the camera to Big. She took some nice pictures. Enjoy and let me know if you spot anything familiar!

For more information about the Accokeek Foundation visit http://www.accokeekfoundation.org

Ron Finley, Geurilla Gardner

THIS! Everything about this. It’s only 11 minutes long but I swear it’s life changing. Ron Finley is my new real food/gardening idol. First it was Sally Fallon Morrel but then she came out with her insane children’s nutrition book and ridiculous ideas about who should and should not breastfeed.
Then it was Joel Salatin. Still kinda is but his insistence on only hiring people that look “All American” kinda hurts my feelings. I’m not “All American looking Joel, but I am awesome. Who am I kidding Joel, I can’t stay mad at you. Everything I want to do is illegal too.
So now we’re onto Mr. Ron Finley. Gardening Gangster in South Central LA. Or, excuse me, South LA.
“Food is the problem and the solution”

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la.html

Welcome to Seattle

We live about a half an hour south of our Nation’s Capital, in a cozy little suburb in Maryland. There’s a joke around here – if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes. Also we very rarely have a true spring that lasts longer than a few weeks. Usually we go from a long, cold, stupid winter to a quick spring, to a long, hot glorious summer. Not this year. Winter drug on much longer than usual (winter coats on Easter!) and for the first time in a long time we’re having a true Spring. I don’t like it one bit. It’s cold, it’s rainy, it’s not 80 degrees. We had a frost warning two nights ago! My plants are growing and germinating but not at the rate I’d like them to be or that they would be if it would warm up a tad and give them a little sunshine. I transplanted my tomatoes 2 weeks ago and I swear they haven’t grown at all.

Anywhoo. Enough Debbie Downer about things I can’t control. Any suggestions on how to make tomatoes grow big and strong and delicious?
The search is out for pullets! I’m hoping for 4 ladies from the same flock. Either already laying or about to lay. Easter eggers, Marans, Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns or Silkies. Leghorns are good layers but is it shallow of me not to want white eggs?
We recently went on a field trip to The Accokeek Foundation. We went on a Garden Walk of their Museum Garden. Learned lots, post coming soon.

It's a Big Day Around the Brown House.

Mr. Farmer Brown and I got married a year ago today. Happy Anniversary to us! We celebrate with raw fish and punk rock, cus that spells true love <3