I can see why the “you’re spending too long on twitter” stuff seems a bit creepy but something like this would really help me remember what I was doing to prepare timesheets/ invoices! I currently have to wade through chat logs/ git/ file modification dates to try and figure it out which is a pain.

This looks great - thanks a lot!

Can you really isolate a single cell without a laboratory?! What sort of equipment? This sounds more involved than just innoculating some wort with a spoonful of yeast sediment…

I tried to look at yeast under a 40x-640x microscope but just saw a brown blur! I presumed you would need expensive stains/ growth media to experiment properly.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by “1-cell” steps?

I didn’t realise yeasts have “killing features” either… I thought the whole idea with fermentation was to create the right conditions for your favoured micro-organism to out compete the rest!

Brilliant. This looks great. Thanks for taking the time for a thorough write up!

Great idea! We’re overrun with Lemon Balm!

How did you extract the flavour? Did you add it to the boil or make a vodka tincture or something?

In fact I’d really be up for trying this out if you’d care to share your recipe?

The brown scum on the first two images could just be tannin from black tea. You can peel this/ the stained layers off the scoby. You can avoid it next time by not letting the tea “stew” i.e. removing the tea bag sooner (you might also need to use a water filter).

You can increase the yield with a bigger container. It needs to have a wide mouth to maximise the amount of surface exposed to air relative to the volume of liquid. I personally find my kombucha too acidic after a week so need to dilute it in a closed secondary fermentation (to fizz up) which doubles the yield.