Week 6

This week was unique due to the fact that I came down with a cold and was unable to attend class on Tuesday. Nevertheless, I was able to make progress with my kombucha brew and make plans over Zoom with my teammates for our bread project.

At the one week point of the first fermentation, the SCOBY was looking pretty gross and seemed to have given birth to a baby SCOBY. I was worried that my SCOBY had grown mold because it looked discolored and bubbly, but a webpage called “Help! My SCOBY is UGLY and Other Common Issues” by CulturedFoodLife.com assured me that my SCOBY was in normal condition. The article says that it's not unusual for SCOBY to be many different colors and to have a lumpy texture. No two SCOBYs will ever look the same, and this is because different ingredients, temperatures, seasons, and home bacteria will all culminate to a unique appearance (Schwenk). I felt relieved after reading this because considering I was already sick this week, I did not want to make myself more ill by drinking moldy kombucha.

Disturbingly ugly SCOBY floating at the top of my brew.

After doing a quick taste test, I transferred the kombucha into two jars and sealed the SCOBY away with one new cup of green tea. I decided to try flavoring my kombucha, and got inspiration from this “Flavoring homemade kombucha” article by YouBrewKombucha. In one jar, I added blackberries and strawberries with a splash of lemon to create a mixed berry flavor. In the second jar, I added sliced apples and sprinkled some ground cinnamon to produce a cinnamon apple flavor. I was intrigued to learn that adding fresh fruits to your kombucha can boost the carbonation, as you provide the yeasts with natural sugar to eat and produce carbon dioxide, which is then trapped in the bottles to make bubbles (You Brew Kombucha). I definitely like my kombucha extra bubbly, so I made sure to add lots of fruits. I could see the carbonation in the bottles after two days, and it made me really excited to try the kombucha later when it's ready.

My two personally flavored jars of kombucha, mixed berry on the left and apple cinnamon on the right.

Kombucha in the fridge. Shortly after this I took them out because I read that they would carbonate more if left out on the kitchen counter.

This morning, I took out the fruits and resealed the jars to place them in the refrigerator. I decided to leave the fruit in for only two days because I read on a Reddit thread that the kombucha retains most of the flavor from the fruit during just the first two days. The mixed berry kombucha became a nice berry red color while the apple cinnamon kept a more caramel hue. Both brews smelled really good when I was removing the fruit. I think that flavoring the kombucha was my favorite phase of the process because it allowed me to personalize my drinks and get creative with the flavors. I hope to brew more kombucha in the future using my saved SCOBY.

Furthermore, because I was sick this week, I grew curious about whether or not drinking my kombucha would help me fight off my cold. This idea was planted in my brain after learning a few weeks back that kombucha and other fermented foods are able to diversify your microbiome and improve gut health. It would have been great if my kombucha could act as a home remedy to strengthen my immune system. However, after doing some research, I learned that there is not enough data and studies to directly prove that kombucha specifically has concrete health benefits. Though some research suggests that kombucha may support the human body similarly to probiotic supplements, it would also be irresponsible to ignore the risks of homemade kombucha. Kombucha has been reported to cause upset stomach, infections, and allergic reactions in some (Zeratsky). This is partially because a lot of kombucha is made in unsanitary at-home environments. So, I came to the conclusion that I would not be able to rely on kombucha as medicine for my common cold.

Luckily, as I neared the end of this week, my condition improved drastically, and I was able to hop on a Zoom call with Valentin and Peyton to discuss the logistics of our bread project. We’ve decided to create a large poster documenting our bread diagram comparing three main popular grains- wheat, corn, and rice. We will spend the next week selecting our recipes and gathering ingredients, and then we will reconvene on Sunday to bake and photograph our breads. When thinking about the physical layout of our diagram, we were inspired by an installation that was part of the Design Ah! Exhibition in Toyama called Egg Transformation by Satoshi Asakawa. I love how this displays the various ways you can cook an egg in a simple and organized yet visually appealing way. I am assuming that each piece included in this chart is fake, and I admire the craftsmanship that goes into designing and producing these fake food models.

Egg Transformation, Satoshi Asakawa

We are currently trying to decide whether we’d like to present our ingredients in bowls or as geometric shapes. We will definitely experiment with this aspect of the presentation when meeting on Sunday. We also aim to choose recipes that are as simple and bare-bones as possible, so that we may focus on the main scientific process of breadmaking.

On Friday, I made a trip to the Barnes and Noble at The Grove and happened to venture into the cookbook aisles. There, I saw a lot of cookbooks focused solely on baking bread! I took some pictures of pages that inspired me, and could possibly influence the visual presentation of our diagram.

Two bread books I found at Barnes and Noble.

While flipping through the pages of Bakery School: 80 Step-By-Step Recipes for Bread and Viennoiseries, I was surprised to learn about the preshaping, rest, and final shaping processes of bread. I am not an experienced baker, so I didn’t know that this was something that could be done. The preshaping step creates a sense of uniformity and order when baking a large batch, as without preshaping you could end up with an unruly bunch of differently-sized loaves. Preshaping also allows time to add strength to the dough by making it tighter (Maurizio). Perhaps we will add this step when baking our bread as well.

Photographing the pre-shaping process of breadmaking.

Our group also aims to still incorporate scoring into our bread project, with each loaf of bread receiving a design related to its grain. I found this nice spread of scoring designs that may serve as inspiration.

Different ways to score bread.

All in all, this was a surprisingly educational week considering that I was out sick for most of it. I am very excited to finally try my kombucha once it is more chilled, and I’m also looking forward to baking a lot of bread with my groupmates next week.

Works Cited

Bakery School: 80 Step-by-Step Recipes for Bread and Viennoiseries. Grub Street, 2022.

“Design Ah! Exhibition in Toyama.” Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art & Design, 6 Aug. 2021, https://tad-toyama.jp/en/exhibition-event/1765.

“Guide to Flavoring Homemade Kombucha.” Youbrewkombucha, https://www.youbrewkombucha.com/flavoring.

Maurizio, Leo. “Preshaping Bread Dough.” King Arthur Baking, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2019/02/08/preshaping-bread-dough.

Schwenk, Donna. “Help! My Scoby Is Ugly and Other Common Issues.” Cultured Food Life, 15 Sept. 2021, https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/help-my-scoby-is-ugly-and-other-common-issues/.

Zeratsky, Katherine. “What Is Kombucha Tea? Does It Have Any Health Benefits?” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 24 Aug. 2022, https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/expert-answers/kombucha-tea/faq-20058126.