Spring has turned into summer here at the RV park. My RV related chores are not getting done nearly fast enough, but I am enjoying putzing around in the kitchen. Any excuse, really, to avoid those chores.
I do a little baking. Margaret calls it my “baking therapy”. I make most of the bread we eat and a few muffins from time to time to enjoy with my morning coffee. But I haven’t made any sourdough bread lately. No starter.
I had a nice sourdough starter happily bubbling away in Mexico a few years ago. Unfortunately, it languished, along with my kombucha starter after the last couple of winters of uninspired camping. I tried a loaf or two of ‘shortcut’ sourdough (tasty, but just not the real thing). It was time to get a new starter happening.
Then, a few days later, one of my daughters dropped by and asked when I was going to make kombucha again. “Then you can give me some of your starter so I can make my own.” I don’t know any kombucha-makers around here who could share their starter with me. Being the soft touch that I am (and perhaps putting off some chores), I set out to create a scoby, the kombucha starter.
While it is possible to make one completely from scratch, it’s a lot of work, so I went the route that most YouTube kombucha-makers use – creating it from a bottle of commercially bottled kombucha.
Our local supermarket had lots of flavours of unpasteurized kombucha, but no unflavoured ones. I picked the most benign – ginger – to spike my sweet tea. And off it went. By the end of the week, I had my scoby.
Today I start a new project: a ginger bug. I grated some ginger, added some sugar and water, and, hopefully, in a week or so, I’ll be able to use it to make my own homebrew ginger-ale. Sorry, Canada Dry
Now there are three little jars bubbling away on the counter. Everyone needs a hobby. Or three.
Remind Me Again Where I Was Going.... 