As promised in my initial kombucha posts, the time has now come to write about flavoring this amazing beverage! Flavoring kombucha is easy – you just add the flavor at the same time as bottling and leave the bottles out of the fridge for 7-14 days before enjoying over some ice. I have tried a few different flavors and techniques to flavoring so here they are…

You’ve made your first batch of delicious, nutritious, warming bone broth. You’ve divided it up into smaller portions, ready to be used for… um. Okay so you don’t know what to use your bone broth in. That’s okay, because I’m here to help (Georgia saves the day yet again!).

I was introduced to the idea of making bone broth by a friend who was telling me that she was hearing more and more about it recently so was looking into making it herself. She was telling me about the benefits of making and consuming bone broth, as well as the nutritional benefits of eating more meat off the bone – basically for the same reasons, those reasons being that there are a number of super beneficial minerals in bones that you miss out on when you don’t cook with bones still in.
 
Within no time at all she had made her first batch and sent me a photo of her before and after broth that kicked my butt into gear to make my own as well.

Check out her inspirational broth coming together in the next three photos.

Bone broth is sort of like a stock that you can use in cooking as a base for soups or when slow cooking meat to keep it juicy and delicious (with the bone in is better remember!). But here's a plot twist... bone broth can also be consumed as a drink that is a quick way to get extra vitamins, minerals and amino acids into your bod!
 
A bone broth advocate and amazingly inspiring woman, Melissa Ambrosini swears by bone broth and encourages everyone to get into having bone broth daily to improve gut health. I have taken her bone broth guidelines to create my own chicken based bone broth that I plan to have daily – either in my cooking or as a drink.
 
Follow me through the timeline of this amazing broth coming together and see my version of a home-made, organic, tasty and super healthy bone broth below!

Just quickly, if you haven’t already, read part one of my kombucha making journey so this post makes sense…
 
Talk about a roller-coaster of a first batch of kombucha! I tasted my kombucha on day seven and liked the flavor, however I was away for the next few days (bad planning on my part – sorry kombucha) so I couldn’t stop the first fermenting process at that time.
 
Fast forward to day twelve and I tried it again. I did like the flavor, but this time my kombucha was a lot more bitter… actually, it tasted more vinegary than bitter (not bad, just not ideal for my taste buds). This week being a bit of a shamble for me I was only able to stop the first fermenting process and start flavouring on day fourteen – my flavours of choice were ginger for one bottle and mint and lime for the other.

Did I mention my kombucha grew a baby SCOBY?! Proud mother moment over here. Check out my babies in the photo below (if you’ve never seen a SCOBY don’t freak out, I swear they’re meant to look like slimy little alien mushrooms). In the second photo: The dark one on the right is the mother that I bought from someone off Gumtree and the round one is the baby that grew to the size of my brewing jar.

For me (and for almost everyone else in the world), the Christmas period was all about overindulging in yummy food and a few too many drinks with friends and family. In the first few days or 2017 I heard of the ‘Microbiome Diet’ so I thought I’d do a bit of research to see what it was all about. I wasn’t actually looking for a diet to start, I think I just wanted to feel a bit healthier by looking into health related articles (slightly sad, I know). Through researching the microbiome diet, I learned about kombucha.
 
I had never heard of kombucha before and I wasn’t sure it would be as nice as people on the internet made out. Tea isn’t my thing at all - I’ve only just started drinking green tea and even that took me a few goes at convincing myself I liked it – so I figured I wouldn’t like kombucha. Plus, the whole idea of drinking something that ferments with a weird, mushroom looking thing that’s alive didn’t sound overly inviting to me at all. But the more I read about kombucha, the more I wanted it to be something incorporated into my diet for all the amazing health benefits… so I just prayed that it tasted good as I headed to my local health food store.
 
It. Was. Amazing. So deliciously light and fizzy and the one I tried had such a nice flavor. I knew I had to learn how to make it.
 
Fast forward a few weeks and I’m ready to make my first batch. I’ve bought a big glass jar, two glass bottles (one litre each) and tomorrow I’ll be picking up my SCOBY.