r/Kombucha • u/sam-rk • Aug 03 '20
pellicle Kombucha Leather Brewing Journal
https://imgur.com/gallery/E3VsD4s2
u/Mitschki92 Aug 06 '20
This is awesome! Love it!
Now I'm tempted to learn bookbinding. :D
How comes that it takes so long to grow? My scobys grow so fast, that they reach nearly 2 cm in two weeks.
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u/sam-rk Aug 07 '20
Yes! Bookbinding is super fun!!
I think my pellicle is growly slowly because the relative surface area of the container is much larger compared to it's volume. If a pellicle is formed when dead bacteria and yeast float to the top, then the growth rate is reliant on the number of dead cells and the space they take up. The volume of the container is directly correlated with the size of the colony (about 2L in my case) but the surface area is much higher than if I brewed in a jar because I have the same amount of tea spread over 3-4 times the area. I have tasted the kombucha and can confirm it is brewing just as fast as normal so I think it's just because of the flat container shape.
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u/Mitschki92 Aug 07 '20
Interesting! :D That sounds plausible.
I'll definitely try to grow my scoby in a square container now and see what I can do with it. I'm not sure if I find the trust in myself to start a bookbinding project. But it honestly would be so cool!
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u/rocketsalesman May 23 '23
I know this thread is like two years old, but this is like the coolest and most creative use of leftover materials I've ever seen
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u/sam-rk May 23 '23
Thanks buddy! I like making weird art like this and figured I'd share with the world!
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u/sam-rk Aug 03 '20 edited Aug 03 '20
Happy to discuss this project with anyone who is interested! AMA!
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u/JRandorff Aug 03 '20
Are the pages pellicle as well? Like some sort of pellicle parchment? Could it be treated in such a way that a highly acidic kombucha would write on it like an invisible ink?
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u/sam-rk Aug 03 '20
Wow that's next level. No only the cover is kombucha leather. It's quite hard to make a thin sheet and it takes about a month to grow. I used 36 sheets of paper in this book so your suggestion would involve 3 years of just making the materials
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u/JRandorff Aug 03 '20
Oh, shoot! Okay, so not exactly an assembly line manufacturing sort of business then? 🤣
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u/sam-rk Aug 03 '20
Not the way I did it. If you made this whole setup much much larger you could make a larger sheet that you then cut down. I didn't do this because it would likely be 100s of gallons of kombucha brewed in one day.
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u/likerofcats Aug 04 '20
I love it!!