Brewing Continues

Well, it has been two weeks since my last post. I'm sorry to any readers out there for the long pause between posts, but I was hit with a massive bit of the Klamath Krud and have been doing little more than constantly blow my nose, cough, and take various forms of cold medicine for these past two weeks.
Fortunately I have managed to continue brewing of my Kombucha and have been drinking my first batch daily. Although this cold has kicked my butt I do think that the combination of tea and Echinacea every day has been helping me get through it faster.
Brewing continuous batches of tea has been surprisingly easy as it only really takes any type of effort a few times during the cycle. I am now on my third batch with the second bottled 4 days ago and about ready to move to the fridge. The bottling of this second batch was a pleasant surprise. The brew was very carbonated and I managed to get to the bottling a couple days earlier so the tea is less vinegary than the first batch, which will definitely make it easier to drink. The first batch is almost too strong to stomach but I manage to take about 5 ounces in every night before bed, I just have to take it like a shot and not think about the taste :)
So my second batch is a bit of a flavor experiment. After watching some helpful videos (click on the picture to check out a helpful site if you're interested in flavor ideas) I decided on the lime and ginger combination for my first flavoring test. I bought some organic ginger and limes, always use the freshest ingredients you can find, and chopped the ginger pretty small to allow it to become saturated in the tea, then squeezed out the lime juice and took off a couple pieces of the peel, being careful to get as much of the pith off as possible. These went into my bottle before the tea. I would recommend "burping" any bottles of tea every day or every other day depending on the strength of your carbonation and what you're using to bottle. I plan on eventually getting some genuine brewers bottles with pressure safe caps. My little jars for the first batch needed burping every day, I could see the lids bulging out slightly and there was a definite pop when I opened them. This second bottle I have not opened since it was first poured and the explosion of the gases when I popped the cork was very nearly like opening a bottle of champagne. There was even a cloud of CO2 in the neck after opening and a strong aroma of lime and ginger. Once it is refrigerated the production of gases will slow and it should be safe to leave alone. Can't wait to taste this one in a couple more days :)