kitchen

The Homestead Holiday Gift Guide

October 2, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

The holidays are coming and with that comes the desire to get those that matter to us gifts that are meaningful and useful. If you are living on a homestead, or have relatives that do, this list is packed full of great ideas to help you get the most bang for your buck. While also get something that they will love. Some of the things on this list are things that are on our own holiday wish list. Others are things that we have already bought and absolutely love. This homestead holiday gift guide is sure to have something for your homesteader.

If you are a homesteader, and your family doesn’t know what to get you for the holidays? Share this with them. Or, if you are going to a holiday party and need a hostess gift? Check out the $0-$50 section below. It’s got a ton of great ideas.

Homestead Holiday Gift Guide

I have broken this guide up into price points because that’s important. No one wants to find the perfect gift and realize it’s outside of their price range. Also this entire post is filled with affiliate links. Buying from these links doesn’t charge you any extra but it does allow us to make some extra money for the farm. You can read more about our affiliate disclosure by clicking the link.

But First Some Housekeeping

The holiday season is a time for giving. As the giver, you are giving someone a gift that you thought they would like or that made you think of them. And friends? That is amazing. As the recipient, it is an awesome feeling when someone hands you a gift and says, “This made me think of you.” But also as a recipient, I don’t want you to waste your money on me. I would rather you donate that money to a good cause like animal rescue, save the bees, or really anything where the money actually goes to the cause.

Sometimes though, the gift giver simply wants to give you a gift. And if you are getting a gift for a homesteader, you may be a little lost on what to get them. You know they don’t want anything, but you are bound and determined to get them something. Most homesteaders would love to receive a gift that works on the farm. So let’s talk about homestead holiday gifts.

$0-$100 Gifts

First and foremost, GIFT CARDS. I can not stress this enough. I know, it seems like such an impersonal gift. But it is seriously the BEST gift I could receive and I know a lot of other people feel the same. I hate wasting money and when people buy things that I can’t use, it bothers me. Not because I’m spoiled, although that is true too. It’s because that person spent their hard earned money on things that won’t get used, can’t be returned, etc. So seriously consider gift cards to places like Home Depot, Tractor Supply and Amazon.

Digital Prints, Digital Art Work, or Printables– I have several different digital photography prints in my Etsy store and they are a huge hit. Unlike regular artwork, these are digital and can be printed at any size you want. These make fantastic hostess gifts, too. You will usually find prints for less than $10 and it doesn’t cost more than a few more dollars to have them printed at Walmart, Target, Sams, etc.

Ask About Their Amazon Wish List– Almost anyone that regularly shops on Amazon has at least one wish list. I have 10. But ask them for a link to their wish list so you can be sure to get something that they will love.

Donations– Every year there is that one person that you have absolutely no idea what to get them. I’ve got a family full of them. Instead of getting them a present that is going to hang out in the garage for the next 5 years, you know who you are, make a donation to their favorite charity. Get them a card, explain what you did, and put the receipt in the card.

Books– If your homesteader is a bookworm then I’ve got the list for you!

Homesteading

Cookbooks

Animals

Gear- Whether it’s stuff for butchering, milking, or building having extra gear is amazing. Gift cards would be amazing for this stuff as well because you may not know the difference between hoof trimmers to get, or which power tools they need batteries for. But I will tell you this, getting me gear so I can do my chores better? Score.

Sharp Things

Tools

Miscellaneous

Cast Iron, the good kind from antique stores.
Boots are always a plus
Coveralls! Seriously.

Seeds!!!!!!!! This would probably be better as a gift card, but I don’t know many homesteaders that will turn down packets of seeds. Tomatoes are usually pretty safe. Cucumbers are too if they have livestock. But check and see what they grow, and then check out Territorial Seed Company or Eden Brothers.

Plants- Territorial Seed has some great plants including coffee plants! Etsy is also another great place to get edible plants so consider berry bushes, grape vines, etc.

$100-$250 Gifts

You had better be pretty good to get something off this list. While I know I haven’t been super good, if my family is reading this? I would like this milker please!

Greenhouse– There are some greenhouses that will come in under $250 that are great for seed starts or house plants that are too big to come inside. If you know they are short on space, a greenhouse may be a great option.

Pressure Canners– I will never say no to an additional canner. I’ve been saving up for this canner, but just having another one is a time saver for me. The All American 931 can hold 19 quart jars and is a double stack. When I’m hip deep in canning season, this helps a lot. The Presto is a great canner and you can usually only get 7 quart jars in there.

Camp stove- Along the same lines as a pressure canner, having additional burners would be amazing. Not to mention not heating up the house. This camp stove has been on my list for a while and I’m hoping to get one before next canning season.

Bench Grinder– You have no idea how quickly sharp things get dull on the homestead. Having a good bench grinder is a great gift to give. Jared is able to sharpen all the knives, scissors, shovels, axes, and more with ours.

$250+ Gifts

If you’ve got a from scratch chef that has made you some amazing meals, check out this Kitchen Aid Mixer. Yes, it’s pricey but well worth the money spent, especially if that means you are going to get some awesome home cooking from it. This one is on my wish list as well

Got a homesteader that has goats? Or other hooved creatures? Hoof Boss is definitely a time and back saver. When we have to trim hooves, it takes hours. It’s hard on the back and trying to wrangle all the goats? Well, they’re lucky they’re cute.

Chainsaws– Now, this one will need a little bit of research, but an extra chainsaw is always great to have around. Not to mention the chains, sharpening equipment, etc.

At The End Of The Day

Your homesteader will love whatever gift you give them, we are grateful like that. But if you want to give them something that they will use, or need, check out some of the offerings on the homestead holiday gift guide. Or better yet, ask them what they want or need. I’m sure they would be ecstatic to receive something they need.

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The Laundry Room Remodel

August 18, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

Hold on to your butts, this is a long posts.

Not everything on the homestead is about livestock, gardens and canning. Sometimes it’s about what is inside your home too. When we bought the house, we really didn’t care that the walls were wood paneled. Nor did we care that we would have to replace the floors. Those different upgrades that we were going to have to do, just was not a problem. We bought it for the land. Unfortunately, the house still does need to be updated and brought into this century, let alone this decade. So I decided to do a laundry room remodel and to make it more of a challenge for less than $700.

Why The Laundry Room?
Final Takeaways For A Laundry Room Remodel

Why The Laundry Room?

Well, simply put it’s the most hated room in our house, bar none. No one likes doing laundry. But since I hate it the least, it’s “my” chore. Which is fine because that means that the dishes go to someone else. Score.

But it was hard to find the urge to get in there and do the laundry, or even clean the space. It was drab and was just not nice to look at. The worst part was, no matter how many times I cleaned it, it always stunk.

I could have started anywhere in the house, but this seemed to be the most manageable. Plus, if we screwed something up, it was a small space. It had the least amount of the things we hated the most (paneling) and seemed like a quick remodel would be, well, quick. There was no way to know how wrong I was.

Before the laundry remodel could start, I had to at least think about that I wanted it to look like. The first thing I did, was figure out all the things we hated about the room.

The Things We Hated:

Paneling
Lack of storage
Open shelves
Chewed and clawed up door jam
Popcorn ceilings
Lighting
No place to fold or store laundry while finishing the other laundry.

Then I figured out what I wanted it to look like. There were two things that needed to happen in that room, the paneling gone and more storage. Anything past that was fair game. So I started working on designing what I wanted.

Our house is not very big and that is just fine with us. But the downside is that we have to get very creative with storage options. I have found that putting in cabinets has helped a ton. Almost every single remodel or design idea has tons of shelves, cabinets and other storage ideas.

Where To Start: Paneling

Before we jump into the rest of this post, let me tell you something about paneling and trying to cover it. This is not for the feint of heart. Nor is it for someone not willing to work. Like most construction projects, it’s dirty, dusty, and there is a ton of heavy lifting. Don’t let any of the videos or other posts lie to you and tell you, “I just covered the crack in the paneling and painted”. That’s not what they did, trust me.

Back to the laundry room.

Once we got the majority of everything out of the laundry room, I decided to start with the wood paneling. While others may love shiplap, I hate it. So I started looking into how to cover up the cracks in the paneling and found that caulk is a good choice. Let me tell you, it’s not.

After twelve bottles of caulking, we weren’t even half way done. It also didn’t fill the cracks well. Once it dried, there would be an indent in the middle of the crack. So that failed.

When talking to a couple of friends who do construction, they suggested using drywall putty or mud. That worked a lot better, and was a ton cheaper so we went with that. But the problem we were still having was that, once dried, the crack was still noticeable.

The indent that doesn’t want to be covered

After three to four coats with the drywall mud, the crack was barely noticeable and ready to sand.

Let me tell you this, before you start sanding, make sure that you have a respirator like this one and great airflow in the room you’ll be working in. I used sheets and blankets to block off the doorway so that we could keep the dust to a minimum and it definitely helped. But the clean up was enormous.

Next: Ceiling and Electrical

Next we started working on removing the popcorn ceiling. For this job, it may have been better just to leave it. But popcorn ceilings are a close second in my hatred book. To remove popcorn ceiling you need two things, a spray bottle with water and a drywall knife similar to this, and the size doesn’t matter. You can buy a popcorn scraper but we found that it gouged the ceiling more and was harder to work with. Because all the “droppings” fell into the bag, it’s definitely worth a shot.

Then you are going to soak the ceiling with water using some sort of sprayer, we used this one. Once it’s saturated, and yes you need to soak it, you can start working to scrape the ceiling. I will tell you it is extremely satisfying to do it. I don’t know why. Once you’re done, you can sand any rough spots.

Another option for the ceiling is to just sand it if you have an electric sander. After doing the scraper, I liked this method the most because it is a one and done. I also didn’t have to worry as much about gouging the ceiling when I sanded. Plus, I was already sanding the walls so two birds, one stone.

After the ceiling was done, dry and painted, it was time to tackle the nipple lights. I don’t know what they’re actually called but they look like nipples, sorry. It was also time to start pulling the black outlets and switches and replacing them with white ones.

Cue problem #93480382 of this remodel. The electrical was done to 1980s code, so it was pretty much a fire hazard. And since our house is all wood, it would have gone up like a matchbox. After cleaning out forty years of dust, bugs and debris out of the switch boxes, we were able to replace the switches. Only to find out, everything was backwards. Since Jared is amazing, he was able to get in there and help me get everything switched out. I love that man.

Once we got the new light fixture installed, we were ready to tackle the paint.

Painting Over Wood Paneling

Now, before we jump into painting, you need to know something about wood paneling. Much like painting previously painted wood, you need to sand your paneling. If you don’t, the paint won’t stick. We took our sander around the room and hit every single wall. Then we washed the walls with warm soapy water. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to have another problem, which of course we did.

I used Kilz Primer, because the previous owners had cats and I’m pretty sure the litter box was in the laundry room. So it stunk. After I hit the walls, ceiling, baseboards and door jams, you could still see the wood paneling AND the cracks.

We did four coats of primer and you could still see the orange through the paint. I was not happy. Mind you at this point, I still hadn’t picked a color for the walls. But after seeing that we would need a darker color to help hide the wood? Gray it is.

Storage

I’m not a decorator, but seeing everything start to come together is my favorite part. There were a lot of phone calls and text messages sent to my family and friends because I am absolutely clueless when it comes to this stuff. The two things I knew that I wanted was it to feel clean, even if it wasn’t, and to have a ton of storage.

Previously, when it was time to do laundry, we had a storage rack like this. It worked okay, but it was temporary because we lived in a rental. When we moved into this house, we couldn’t really use it. It blocked access to the attic and didn’t fit between the basement door and the dryer. So anytime we had to go into the attic, we had to unload this thing and move it out of the way.

So I started measuring. I figured that I could put cabinets and shelves over the washer and dryer. I decided that I wanted to use cabinets and industrial pipe rod to fold our clothes. Here come the kitchen cabinets. The unfinished cabinets are much cheaper and are usually in stock at the stores.

I also grabbed a couple of decking boards to use as the tops and used a propane torch to burn them. To attach the boards to the cabinets, I used 1in corner brackets. Then, I found my stash of cabinet pulls and finished it off.

When we were placing the wall cabinets, we decided to use a French cleat system and it worked pretty well except, you could see where the top cleats where too low and too wide. This resulted in having to get a word art sign that could hide it.

Then came the shelves. We bought 1x10x10 boards and these shelf brackets. I really love these brackets! I’m not a fan of the normal shelf brackets because they look cheap to me. While these brackets were more expensive, I think it looks more finished.

The final touch of this remodel, was adding different storage containers for laundry detergent, bleach, etc. I didn’t want to just leave them in their packaging because, well it’s not nice to look at. While that may not bother some, I do want my home to look a little more put together.

Today, my laundry room looks like this and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Final Takeaways For A Laundry Room Remodel

–Drywall Tape -Next time we will be using drywall tape to help cover the cracks in the paneling better.

-Lighting- bright white light bulbs will help keep the room looking bigger instead of the more orange-y/ yellow-y bulbs.

– Use drop cloths to protect your floors if you will not be replacing them

– Give yourself at least an inch when measuring for cabinets. We ended up having to cram that smaller cabinet between the washer and dryer. The good news is that now my washer can’t walk out when it’s unbalanced.

-You don’t have to buy every decoration when you hit the final stage. You can, but I liked being able to find things as I liked them instead of switching things out and wasting money.

I know this was a long post. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking around. While this laundry room remodel took a couple of months and is still not quite done, it has been great. We have lived in rentals our entire marriage and it’s nice to be able to work together and make this home ours.

How To Make Kombucha

August 8, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

I did a whole post about how to bring back your kombucha. But I realized, I never did a post about starting booch in the first place! There are a million articles, blog posts and more about making kombucha but I wanted to tell you how I do it and the products I use to make kombucha.

I almost exclusively use Cultures For Health for all of my culture needs and Farmhouse Teas for our second batch needs. We do collect a commission from links at absolutely no cost to you. This helps us keep our blog and homestead up and running. You can read more that part here. Back to CFH and FHT.

The reason is because they are pretty much a one stop shop when it comes to all thing fermented or cultured. That being said, this post is heavily linked with their products but also products that we use on our homestead. Feel free to click through the links to find what you need.

Shopping List:

Vessel– I use one very similar to this one but mine is a thrift store find. You can absolutely use something smaller but make sure it is glass.

SCOBY– I bought mine from CFH. I have enjoyed their other cultures and have been very happy with their SCOBY and other cultures.

First Ferment Tea- This is where it gets a little tricky. While I love CFH, I prefer the Three Sisters Black tea blend from FHT. I’ve tried other tea blends and they’re okay, but I really like this tea for my base blend.

Second Ferment Teas- For my second ferment, I really like the Strawberry Mojitio and the Mango from FHT. Those are specific to their kombucha teas. BUT they also have some great teas that work with a second ferment. The first is their iced tea blends. If you like iced tea then you can make it on its own, but I don’t. I prefer to do a second ferment with it instead. The other is using their herbal teas. They have so many different fruity flavors that really make your booch delicious.

Bottles- I really like old GT kombucha bottles, but it can get confusing when I end up having to buy some and can’t remember which is which. So I also get these swing top or Grolsch bottles. I use these swing tops for everything from booch, tea, lemonade or creamers.

Make it

Pulled from Bringing Back Your Booch from here

First, brew your new sweet tea. I like my tea a little stronger and sweeter so I use 6 teaspoons of half black/ half green tea. While I have a kettle going for water, I add a cold brew filter to a wide mouth, half gallon mason jar and add my tea to the filter. Once the water is boiling, I pour over the filter and let it sit for about 10 minutes or until I remember I have it steeping. I could set a timer, but I usually don’t remember I even have one.

***** Very important! Use dechlorinated water!!!!! If you are on city water or are unsure if you have chlorinated water, use bottled spring water or leave a gallon of water out on the counter for 24 hours. If you use chlorinated water you will kill all the good bacteria we are trying to grow!******

While the tea is steeping I add about a quart of cold water to my vessel. I also use ice to get the water nice and cold so that I can keep the process to a minimum time wise. I use a vessel very similar to this, but mine is a thrift store find. The biggest thing to remember is that any spigot that you use will get clogged with debris from the SCOBY so make sure you are cleaning it whenever you make a new batch of booch. Rinse REALLY well because we do want GOOD bacteria to grow, not the bad kind.

Once the tea is done steeping, I remove the filter and compost the tea. Then I stir in about 1 1/4 cup of plain sugar into the mason jar with the tea. I stir until the sugar is almost completely dissolved. Then I add the tea to the vessel and add about another 2.5-3 quarts of cold water. I usually just use the half gallon mason jar so I can get any tea or sugar that is left behind. Before adding your SCOBY and starter tea, make sure that none of it is more than about 70*. If it is, add more ice or cold water if necessary to hit that 70*. A little colder is fine, too hot and it will cook your SCOBY and probably kill it.

Once your sweet tea is cool and in the vessel, add your starter and then finally your SCOBY. It’s worth repeating though, you don’t want to add your starter or SCOBY to tea that is too warm because it will kill your SCOBY. Anything over 75* will start to cook the good bacteria and yeast that makes up your SCOBY.

This is all called your first brew. This takes the longest time but gives you just under a gallon of booch for pennies compared to the store.

I love kombucha. As a former soda addict, it gives me the fizziness and flavor from soda without having all those harsh chemicals.

Mother’s Day Gift Guide

April 5, 2022 by Leigh 8 Comments

Mothers are not usually hard to shop for. Most moms want jewelry, flowers, or maybe a spa day. Homesteading moms just don’t. I don’t know many of us that need or want random jewelry. And while I love flowers, I would prefer a plant for the house, garden or even a fruit tree. Most of the time homesteading moms want practical things like a new pocket knife or goats. If they don’t want practical, they probably want something that is a splurge but not too “splurgy”. If you are confused, welcome to the club. Below are my top 15 homesteading mama, mother’s day gift ideas.

Top 15 Gifts For Mother’s Day

Flowers- Most homesteading mamas aren’t interested in a bouquet of flowers. Sure, they’re nice. But a lot of us prefer to watch them grow and clip the ones we want and save the rest. Check out this assortment of Peonies from Eden Brothers. If she likes more elegant flowers these lilies are beautiful.
Seeds– I absolutely love getting seeds for mother’s day. I love getting my hands in the dirt and playing. Normally by Mother’s day, my garden is in and I don’t need much else. That doesn’t mean that there’s not room for a few more items.
Coffee Plant– I don’t drink soda anymore but I drink an embarrassing amount of coffee. Having my own coffee plant would be amazing. AND they ship right in time for Mother’s Day.
Tea Plant- If she’s not a fan of coffee and tea is more her speed, try this tea plant also from Territorial Seed Company

Knives- Now I LOVE my knives. I really like the knives from Smokey Mountain Knife Works because they have so many different kinds. Right now I have my eye on this one, this one and this one. All for different reasons obviously.
Cupcakes in Jars– Seriously who doesn’t love a cupcake! These cute cupcakes are absolutely delicious and I order them pretty regularly. I love the carrot cake and s’mores.

Complete Guide To Pressure Canning– Seriously, this cookbook is amazing. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or a advanced canner, these recipes are to die for and are laid out beautifully. I omit the clear gel or other bulking agents and will either add a roux later or eat it as soup.
The Prairie Homestead Cookbook– I have tried many, MANY recipes out of this book and it will not disappoint! The Cowboy Burgers are a family favorite.
The Homestead Canning Cookbook– This one is another favorite. If you can’t tell I love cookbooks and canning cookbooks are at the top of the list.
Rebel Canners Cookbook– Now this one I will give with a warning. If you are new to canning, scared of canning, etc. This may not be the book for you. Personally, I have been canning for almost a decade and feel that I understand the science behind it enough to know what is safe and what’s not. I also understand that I take that risk. BUT, people have been preserving foods for thousands of years and it’s not been till recently that there is an issue. So do your own research.
Garden Auger– This thing is amazing! I will always drill holes for the garden now. I bought it on a recommendation and have zero regrets.
3 year planner– This is essential for any homesteader to have a quick at a glance look of what they did, how it worked, and plans for the following year. Mine is crammed full of notes, post its, and random sheets of paper. But I know what happened in 2021 and what the plan is for 2023.
Animals- Rarely can you go wrong with new animals, especially baby ones. I don’t know many women that don’t love baby creatures. Chicks, ducklings, goat kids, you name it. But please make sure that it’s something that she wants!
Cast Iron– You seriously can’t go wrong with cast iron when you have practical homesteading mama. I love cast iron and the weirder the better.

All American 941– has been on my list for years and if someone was to buy it for me, I would seriously keep them stocked in soups, stews and all the goodies. That prices tag is steep but they will literally last you forever.

This is simply my list and I know plenty of homesteading mamas that would love to have anything on this list for Mother’s Day. Most of them would love to have something on this for any holiday or just because gift. So treat your mama right this year!

Bringing Back Kombucha

March 15, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

I’m a bad brewer, I left my kombucha on my counter for about six months. Much like everything else, I got busy and forgot about it. I’m not going to lie to you, I really thought I was going to have to scrap the whole thing and start over. While it’s not vinegar, it’s a little too tangy for my liking. But apparently forgetting about your kombucha over winter isn’t that bad, especially when your kitchen regularly sits at 65* or lower. Today, I want to go over bringing back your kombucha.

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PS: the best place I have found for kombucha SCOBY is Cultures For Health. They have a ton of different cultures and I’ll go over how to start their dehydrated kombucha SCOBY in depth below.

Kombucha Is Pretty Forgiving

Lucky for most of us super forgetful people, kombucha is very forgiving…. for the most part. As long as your first ferment isn’t an odd one, like you’ve only added sweet tea in the first place, you can pretty much leave it alone for months on end. In fact that’s how SCOBY hotels got started. But it’s not a great idea to just let it sit without taking the steps to let it go dormant. The longer your SCOBY sits, the more likely it is to get moldy, especially if the environment that it’s in isn’t super clean. Think kitchens with open produce, flies, etc.

I’m not saying your kitchen is dirty, quite the opposite. But I know that no matter how clean my kitchen is, I’ve got fruit flies thanks to the amount of produce my garden is giving me. No matter how often I clean my kitchen or process my produce, it’s still going to have flying critters around it.

How To Bring Your Booch Back?

To start you need to wash your hands and dig that SCOBY out and put it in a CLEAN bowl or on a plate. Make sure to place it somewhere were flies, children or a cat (yes, that almost happened) will get to it. SCOBY stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast and I use this one from Cultures for Health.

This recipe will make approximate 1-1.5 gallons of booch. If you don’t want that much booch, just half or quarter the recipe.

If you order this from Cultures for Health, you will get a small jerky looking SCOBY and you will need several days-weeks to get it started. It’s not hard, just not exactly what I was expecting when I ordered mine. However, it has been a strong starter for me and I would gladly buy another if I did actually end up killing mine. Stick around and I will explain how to start their SCOBY at the end. They do have a live culture that I would recommend if you are looking for a faster start with your booch.

Next, take a cup or two of old kombucha out of the vessel and set aside as your starter.

Next, brew your new sweet tea. I like my tea a little stronger and sweeter so I use 6 teaspoons of half black/ half green tea. While I have a kettle going for water, I add a cold brew filter to a wide mouth, half gallon mason jar and add my tea to the filter. Once the water is boiling, I pour over the filter and let it sit for about 10 minutes or until I remember I have it steeping. I could set a timer, but I usually don’t remember I even have one.

This is all called your first brew. This takes the longest time but gives you just under a gallon of booch for pennies compared to the store. The 2nd brew is where we get to have all the fun! I will be posting that one when this batch of booch is ready to be bottled.

Bringing your kombucha back is not difficult. In fact, it’s really no different from brewing a brand new batch. As long as there is no mold on your SCOBY, you are pretty much good to go.

I hope you will at least take the chance on kombucha. I first drank it at the urging of a coworker after I had complained for the umpteenth time about the amount of times I had gone to the bathroom. Within a few hours my stomach cramps went away and I was fine. Now, I drink it several times a week and it really helps with regularity. In hopes of saving some cash, I have revived my booch and hope to start experimenting with flavors very soon!

Using Cultures For Health Dehydrated SCOBY

Cultures for Health has 3 SCOBY’s that you can purchase. The first one is dehydrated, the second is for black tea and the third is for green tea. If you are in a hurry get either the second or third one. Now, when I ordered my first one, I wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention and ordered the dehydrated SCOBY. It has been a fantastic SCOBY but does present a lot of challenges if you are not ready for it.

When using this SCOBY for the first time you have to create a starter for it. Since we are just starting a SCOBY and not actually making Kombucha, just use a wide mouth, quart mason jar to start. You will also be using:

2-3 cups hot water for tea

.25 cup white sugar

2 tea bags or 1-1.5 teaspoons of loose tea. (I prefer loose tea)

Simply use the steps above to make your sweet tea. Make sure everything is cool and then add to your vessel. Next, add the .5 cup vinegar to your vessel. Add your SCOBY and then dampen a coffee filter with a little vinegar and cover your mason jar. Secure with a rubber band or even the ring for the mason jar. Allow it to sit out of direct sunlight for about 30 days.

Your SCOBY may not look any different, mine did, but it is ready to go. You can either dump the first batch (saving 1-2cups) or use in in whatever vinegar recipes you may want.

Now you are ready to make another batch of Kombucha. Just repeat the steps in the main blog post, adjusting for your vessel size. And remember don’t use chlorinated tap water!