Bacterial cellulose (BC) goes by a variety of names. It’s also called microbial cellulose and SCOBY. This version of BC is produced during the fermentation of kombucha.
This recipe is just for growing your bacterial cellulose from the SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast) of a kombucha. There are many resources for making ‘SCOBY leather’ which mainly consist of letting the SCOBY dry and then coating it with a water-resistant beeswax layer. But there is also a wider range of options for working with bacterial cellulose. There will be more recipes up on the site soon for working with bacterial cellulose but for now here is a recipe simply to get you started growing it.
Eventually when your SCOBY is mature it will create thick white pellicles that will usually grow at the air-water interface. If your SCOBY sinks to the bottom that is also fine, these will often darken over time due to prolonged exposure to the tannins in the black tea.
Bacterial Cellulose
Ingredients
- 7 cups clean water
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 4 bags black tea
- 1 cup live kombucha
Equipment
- 1 glass container
- 1 tightly woven cloth
- 1 rubber band
Instructions
- Make your sweetened tea. Bring water to a boil and then stir in sugar until fully dissolved. Add tea bags and allow to steep until liquid cools to room temperature.
- Pour sweetened tea into your container and then add the live kombucha.
- Cover your container with a tightly woven cloth (I prefer cheesecloth) and secure with a rubber band. Store container room temperature and somewhere out of direct sunlight.
- Leave your fledgling kombucha for 1-4 weeks to ferment. You should start to see small bubbles forming and a thin opaque layer on top that will become your SCOBY.