Why did my Kombucha Bread fail?
I attempted a kombucha bread experiment. Kombucha is a culture of bacteria and yeast, where yeast produce CO2 and alcohol, and the bacteria turn the alcohol into acids, This is not so dissimilar from a sourdough culture, so I though I could maybe make use kombucha instead of yeast or starter.
I know some people successfully bootstrapped a sourdough starter from kombucha, but that's not what I wanted to do. I simply wanted to use the yeast from kombucha to make a bread.
I tried two experiments and they both failed.
For the first one, I simply swapped the water for kombucha, and made a 65% hydrated dough (with salt). This dough increased about 10% in volume in the first few hours, but then stopped rising. I let it overnight. It didn't rise anymore, it had really dried up and it smells pretty foul.
For the second one I made a preferment, no salt, 140% hydration, again with kombucha substituting for water, and again I left it overnight. It completely disintegrated, no rise at all as far as I can tell (but maybe it rose and collapsed, I can't say), and it became completely liquid, no gluten at all (is this because the kombucha is acidic?). There's a very think layer of hooch on top. I'd day it's about 50% hooch on top, and 50% flour sediment on the bottom. This one doesn't smell bad though. In fact, it doesn't really smell of anything.
Needless to say, my kombucha is definitely active, it produces a lot of CO2 in the brewing vessel, but it is at the end of its fermentation cycle and it is pretty sour.
Is there any chance this might work at all? I know people bake with yeast water, and I thought kombucha might be similar enough.
Any tips?
As I've never used it for that purpose. I have however used Kefir as a leavening agent with great success as long as it's authentic kefir made from the grains themselves. Don't automatically assume that shop bought anything does exactly as it says on the tin. Perhaps the kombucha is not as good quality as it purports to be.
If you still wish to go down the kombucha route then try a different brand and do two builds before the final dough. Why not take a recipe like Swiss Farmhouse bread by Hamelman which uses a low hydration yeast water preferment in the first build. Then a second build with more flour and this time water once the first build has proved. Then finally onto the final dough. Rather than replacing all the water in the final dough or doing one large high hydration preferment. This way if it fails at any stage you haven't wasted a lot of time and flour. You can then add in some dried yeast to save the day.
Hey Abe, thanks for the reply! I forgot to mention that I brew the Kombucha myself.
So we know it's not treated and it's live.
Next... what's the Ph level of the kombucha?
Good question! Unfortunately I don't have access to a PH-meter. It's definitely on the acidic side though (long fermentation cycle). If it's too acidic, I can try again in a few days with a much younger batch (that I am starting again today anyway).
Kombucha can be very acidic so using it when it's younger would be a good idea. I would also follow a bread recipe with the steps mentioned for the Swiss Farmhouse bread and whenever it says Yeast Water you use Kombucha.
Don't proceed onto the next stage before the pervious stage has gone well. So mix the first stiff piece of dough using flour and kombucha, keep warm, and when it has expanded then go onto the second stage etc.
Here is the recipe. Obviously it's given in oz and not sure how much this makes (I think about two loaves) but if easier then convert to grams and make enough for one loaf. Once your kombucha is ready then skip the raisin soak stage and go straight onto the first build.
Many thanks, that's what I will try next!
Then try and get them into the mix. So give it a good stir when using the kombucha. Also, don't forget that if at any stage you see the bread has "failed" then don't throw it away. It can be saved at any stage by adding yeast.
Best of luck and hope to hear things have gone well soon. I'll be keeping an eye on this post :)
is contained with the bacteria in the scoby. What happens if a little piece of the scoby is mashed and used to inoculated a small flour and water dough first?
Perhaps the yeast is very slow growing, the population can't build fast enough for bread dough use.
This is what I'm trying now, I scraped the jar for strings of yeast, and put pieces of scoby in two new starters. One at 100% hydration and one at 140% hydration. It's been a few hours, but it's not looking promising. As soon as I added the flour all signs of life stopped. I will leave it until tomorrow, maybe it's just very slow growing.
I also made a new batch of kombucha, and in a few days, when the yeast is thriving, but it's not sour yet I will try again.
Hi pdp11
Modern day production of yeast for baking is quite a fine art and done under laboratory conditions selecting cells and growing them on so that we have a consistent product with guaranteed results, the bread yeasts are good producers of CO2. What we need for a well risen loaf
Wine making has a large number of different yeasts available to the wine makers that have been developed for specific wines and they are far less interested in gas production, rather than alcohol. Champagne yeast for instance is able to cope with higher alcohol levels where it is bottle fermented. Bread yeast cannot tolerate alcohol levels above 10% where as wine yeast is still active up to about 17%. The fact that you are adding Kombulcha in its raw form as the sole raising agent is a big ask and i think you have the results in your experiments. If you choose to use Kombulcha as an additive at small values then you may have better results. Even the wild yeasts that we harness in our Sour dough cultures are related to flour and associated grain products so therefore are in their natural environment. Fruit / yeast waters seem to be quite happy and not have degrading effects on the doughs and tend to be used to impart their special flavours.
Regards Derek