Category: Learning Project

Fermentation School: Learning from Others

On Tuesday of this week I went over to Madison’s to watch her make her second fermentation. Second fermentation is when you flavour and add carbonation to your Kombucha brew. She shared a bottle of her second ferment with me that I am anticipating trying.

I wish I had been more proactive in taking photos or a video to document this learning journey as I only took two photos and they are not that great of quality.  In this photo on the left she is showing me that you need to leave at least an inch in the top of the bottle. She also recommended these air-tight, glass, flip-top bottles. When pouring in the Kombucha from the first brew she strained the kombucha and filled the bottles about half full before adding  different flavours of juice.

The photo on the left shows the type of juice she adds to her second ferment. Her favourite juice flavour to add is Raspberry Juice. Madison recommended leaving the bottle for about 7 days at room temperature. After about 7 days the bottle can be transferred to the refrigerator to halt fermentation and prevent over-carbonation. Refrigeration, she shared, prevents it also from becoming too sour.

Madison also shared with me a SCOBY that she separated from another SCOBY. I was a little worried about my previous Amazon SCOBY as it is living on the bottom of the jar, (and later a comment from Matt) so I was excited to try this time a version with Green Tea.

On Wednesday, a new jar arrived as well as some pH strips. Wednesday evening, I brewed a new batch of Kombucha and changed out the cheesecloth covers for a thicker weave of bamboo cotton material.

Scrolling for Answers: Overthinking the Bubbles

Thursday, in reflecting on TikTok’s potential for education I thought I would explore creators who posted about “second fermentation”.  Simply Moods by Ida was an interesting account as well as Cakebrain. Another creator recommended burping Kombucha once every day or every other day after three days of fermentation to prevent Kombucha bombs. There is a lot of crazy content on TikTok also. #burpingkombucha. There is a lot of content about exploding kombucha which makes for dramatic content. I was a little worried about a Kombucha bomb,  so I tried opening the flip-top bottle, but there was only a little carbonation. Perhaps I should have waited 7 days as Madison suggested. I closed it up again and thought I would look further into tips about flat Kombucha on TikTok, manifest.kombucha had an interesting TikTok about decarbonating Kombucha that was in your refrigerator. Searching “kombucha flat” did not give me the search results I was looking for rather it was mostly about flat stomachs. I discovered that searching for specific content may not be the intended use of TikTok. Rather coming across interesting content creators such as the Cultured Guru, a food microbiologist teaching people how to ferment, and following those tangents seemed to be a better use of my time. My questions/concerns about second fermentation I realized were best answered outside of TikTok. I am a little apprehensive about the user agreement for TikTok. While I do not plan to link my CapCut account to TikTok and share my financial information, I made a small video on CapCut to test out the idea of making a short video less than 30 seconds and of the same resolution 720p as a TikTok video and posted it as a short on YouTube (my first ever YouTube short!) I have deep admiration for content creators that can take 30 seconds and make it also educational.

Video Experiments: pH Practice

As soon as my pH strips arrived I was testing different pH levels. It reminded me of Chemistry class. I think I am right on track. The Green Tea was initially 5.5. Then after I added in the SCOBY and starter the pH was around 4.0. Today it was around 3.0. Here is another YouTube short I made. By contrast the Amazon SCOBY trial batch number 1 still is around a 4.0 or maybe even 4.5.

The ultimate test is taste. Amazon batch surprisingly still tastes like sweet tea so I think with a pH still near the starting point this batch may not have taken. By contrast, the batch from Madison already tastes tangy! Follow along next week to see where the fizz, fears, and fermentation will take me!

Despite connecting with several people on Facebook, I soon discovered that their SCOBYs weren’t quite ready to share. Turns out, growing and brewing Kombucha is a bit of a waiting game. So on to Plan B, problem solve. Last Sunday, I ordered a starter kit from a Canadian company, Hoochy Booch in Vancouver, thank you, Instagram algorithm. But by Saturday, even though I swore I’d paid for express shipping, there was nothing in sight. Pivot. Amazon, stage right, with  a SCOBY that promised to arrive Sunday.

In preparation, I subscribed to Revolution Fermentation’s newsletter with new recipes and guides and watched the initial video from an online course on making Kombucha.

Similar to Sonia, my daughter was just as eager to dive in. She had listened to the video from the online course with me and joined me in shopping earlier in the week for black tea, cane sugar, cheese cloth, and a jar that would hold our Kombucha.

We scanned the QR code on the back of the package, which unfortunately, did not take us to the expected directions. My mom soon joined the conversation, with her weekly call, adding in her perspective as I read the directions while boiling water, steeping tea, and measuring sugar.

After removing the tea bags, stirring in the sugar to dissolve, transferring the concentrated tea mixture to a large jar, and measuring in 14 cups of room temperature, filtered water it was time to add in the SCOBY.

I wonder if 14 cups was a little much to add to my jar as there was not much room to add in the SCOBY. I also wonder if the top of the jar is too large for this size of SCOBY. I covered the top with several layers of cheese cloth and secured it with an elastic band. After reviewing the online course video again my daughter and I thought we might change out the cheese cloth to a thicker cloth to prevent any fruit flies from finding our Kombucha.

After making the initial batch of Kombucha I recalled seeing a short on YouTube showing how you could make your own SCOBY from purchased Organic Kombucha so I thought I would experiment with that too as I had a bottle of Synergy in the fridge. As I did not add as much water into the mason jar it took much longer to come to room temperature.

In the meantime, while I waited for the tea mixture to come to room temperature I thought I would explore Dishant’s comment on my last post looking into the Chemistry behind Kombucha. I found a video explaining the Chemistry behind Kombucha, and while I think I will have to watch it more than once to fully understand the chemical reaction, I did have some take aways.

It was interesting to learn from this video that the bacteria in Kombucha produces acetic acid as compared to other forms of fermentation where the bacteria produces lactic acid. Acetic acid bacteria needs oxygen whereas other forms of fermentation do not need oxygen. A take away from this is that Kombucha cannot just be covered over with a lid but needs a cloth that allows it to breathe. A second take away was that as it sits more acetic acid is being produced and the more acidic it becomes. I think it will be interesting to purchase some pH strips to test the different pH levels and perhaps start to understand how this contributes to flavor.

For now, my two experiments are sitting on my counter.  I am looking forward to next week as a friend messaged me while I was writing this post that she has a Kombucha SCOBY ready for me and invited me by to see how she makes Kombucha.

 

 

How often do we go where our curiosity invites us?

I like to think of myself as a lifelong learner and yet sometimes I stall when it comes to taking the initiative, choosing what to explore, engaging with what I am really curious about. Self-directed learning or SDL involves choice, personal relevance, flexibility, motivation, problem-solving and reflection. In the article, Self-Directed Learning and Student-Centred Learning: A Conceptual Comparison Morris, Bremner and Sakata reference SDL as the fundamental competence for a lifelong learner.

More recently, perhaps in accordance with rapidly changing conditions, driven in part by digitisation, COVID-19, and times of conflict, SDL has been highlighted as a fundamental meta-competence for living and working in our increasingly complex and unpredictable world: because it empowers a person to upskill – and be therefore adaptable to change

Why procrastinate then? Perhaps it is because we wonder if taking that initiative is worthwhile. For instance, I am mildly obsessed with Kombucha. Is it worthwhile for me to learn how to make Kombucha when I can purchase Kombucha at the grocery store near my house? Oh! you will save so much money making it yourself. I thought this myself when I taught myself how to sew. I thought if I make my own clothes I will save so much money. In reality I spent a great deal of money purchasing equipment, tools, supplies, and for every item that was wearable I made many other versions that were not. And yet, while others may have done it before or your first attempts might be a disaster, following curiosity is worthwhile.

One of the major components of EC&I831 is a personal learning project that is process based. I find this process based approach fascinating as a learning and teaching strategy and hope to learn more about this learning and teaching strategy through experiencing it. AI for instance, has entered the scene, even in my grade 5 classroom. And where students who just learned how to login to a computer in September, by October can generate and turn in products that exceed the model. In my own teaching practice I am trying to incorporate more triangulation of assessment as traditionally the end product was what we entered into grade book. Process based learning involves goal setting, making connections, planning, research, inquiry, experimentation, risk-taking, problem-solving, adapting, reflecting or metacognition, and documenting the journey.

I included the video linked above because I liked the idea of setting a fixed study time of perhaps 25 minutes a day where you focus on the material. The reasoning the video shared was not that you meet your goal of finishing rather the very act of being interrupted in process keeps interest and motivation.

Initially I struggled with what to choose for my learning project. I wondered if making kombucha would be complex enough. Would it be as simple as brewing a sweet tea, adding in a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast), and letting it ferment 1-2 weeks? In my initial searches I realized learning anything can be as simple or complex depending on how in depth or detailed you want to go. For instance, Revolution Fermentation offers a number of topics to learn about kombucha on their site. Digging deeper, I followed a link on their website to a kombucha masterclass and realized my initial concerns of whether kombucha was complex enough could be put to rest.

Where to start? My first initial impulse was to order a SCOBY off of Amazon, and just get started, however after in the spirit of EC&I831 being a course on Social Media & Open Education I put a call out on Facebook to see if any of my friends also make kombucha and may be willing to share a SCOBY, apparently SCOBYS have babies (more on that later)! 

I thought of how I could incorporate Social Media into learning about Kombucha. Some of the ideas I had included online tutorials and watching topical videos on Youtube. Further I could read blogs. I could follow links on Pinterest to save recipes and brewing guides. I could perhaps join online communities such as Facebook groups or Reddit communities where enthusiasts share their advice, successes and failures. I could listen to Podcasts where fermentation experts share their research and insights.

What I think will actually be complex will be the process of using social media to inform, to make connections, and to share this process.

Embarking on this personal learning project, this video is inspiring, Danny Gevirtz encourages making what you want to make and sharing your work. At one point in the video he says, “if I listened to my dumb brain, and didn’t share what I wanted to share, we wouldn’t be right here right now.” Learning to make kombucha, sew, knit, edit videos, or play the guitar is worthwhile because the process of doing it, connecting with others, and basically getting out of our heads is worthwhile.