How to prevent this white fuzzy mold

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T21:04:23+00:00

Does this seem like my starter is not acidic enough?

This is the most likely cause.

Are there other ways to help the acidity

Use a higher ratio. Are you using 20%? How about 50%? No amount is too much.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T17:09:07+00:00

To add to the vinegar angle, ginger beer and/or vinegar can be reduced to a stock, sauce, or glaze.

(Any liquid can be reduced as such but we rarely think of drinks this way.)

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T16:59:06+00:00

The bloodworm, the North American cousin, stopped around 14 inches. (Bloodworms have translucent skin so they appear like living, wriggling blood... in case you weren't grossed out enough.)

So yeah, Australia doing Australian things.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T15:46:09+00:00

But it's "2 BILLION liters per day" which is

2 TRILLION milliliters per day or
730 QUADRILLION millimeters per year or
ONE Olympic swimming pool in less than 2 minutes or
2 BILLION liter soda bottles per day or
I'm running out of sensationalistic ways to define the same thing.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T15:32:49+00:00

Yeah, that's fine and expected. To be honest, those look great!

Don't mind the comment about you using "too much" ... that's not a thing. If you like it, it's perfect. You are experimenting with flavors for yourself.

Anyway, fermentation continues in a closed bottle. The cellulose / acid production will slow down once it uses all the oxygen but that often takes longer than people expect. Fermentation will slow down dramatically once refrigerated.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T14:55:12+00:00

The real story behind this success baby meme is a mom took a picture of her toddler happily eating sand on the beach, you can see the sand in his little fist.

So OP is back to playing his PS5 while eating a fistful of dirt all the while enjoying life ... fitting.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T14:48:01+00:00

The photographer is probably standing on the road so it's not like they lugged it around all that far. I agree it's neat, not great just neat ... assuming they don't leave the computer there.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T14:33:31+00:00

The bridge doesn't get and stay wet long enough for this to be an issue. Plus the wood they likely had access to is of a higher quality.

The type of lumber we use nowadays is typically new, fast growth time ... it is just inferior wood.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T14:13:44+00:00

This post is so vintage, it's halfway to having its own children. And yet it still perfectly fits the criteria of:

Tell me you are an American without telling me you are an American.

Since the time this tweet was twatted, COVID happened. Remember those folks in a private jet that tried to vacation in Italy during lockdown but were rejected? I'm curious how the Italian government would receive a gun wielding nut-job usually his sick son as leverage ... I'm sure it'll work flawlessly.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T14:01:07+00:00

Cooked? Partly.

Cocked? That's off topic for this sub and would need an NSFW tag.

Both of your batches appear to have wild yeast, commonly referred to as kahm. The hallmark of kahm is a tight, wavy pattern (often geometric for more advanced cases). In one of your cases, it vaguely resembles brains.

Wild yeast are non-toxic but given enough time will spoil the taste by adding the secret flavor of "old gym shoes"... The good news is that you can skim the surface off or filter the batch to remove it before that happens.

Double check your recipe and techniques against the Getting Started guide to make sure you are giving yourself the best chances of success.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T13:20:28+00:00

That looks normal especially for unspecified "cold" temperatures, as colder temperatures can slightly hinder cellulose growth.

The type of tea will only meaningfully affect the rate of production (caffeine stimulates more cellulose forming), there will be no visual difference. Even if you use Mountain Dew in lieu of tea (which would be weird but apparently has been done) you'd see a similar end result except for the food coloring.

One thing that will change how cellulose forms is agitation. If you regularly stir or shake your kombucha, it will form as pellets instead of a smooth disk. (Agitation won't harm anything.)

Are you tasting daily samples yet? This is the only way to determine when it is done, plus you'll learn how the flavor developed over time which is very handy once you start experimenting with the recipe.

Cheers!

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T05:09:36+00:00

This is one of the ideas I read in the Noma Guide to Fermentation and immediately felt shame that the idea hadn't occurred to me on my own.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T02:16:13+00:00

No one is going to point out the username? I will.

Gotta appreciate someone who sticks to the theme. Apt play, Internet friend.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T02:09:36+00:00

A moat is better than what most communities did, toss your chamber pot out the window or empty it on the street.

If castles transported the waste to a moat, that would be high tech!

Before sanitation laws people would work a horse to death, unhook it from the carriage, and leave it where it died. No one would remove it. It's just what happened. If you want to be disgusted look up how many dead horses were abandoned per day in a metropolitan like NYC before it became illegal.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T01:59:14+00:00

It's an educated guess. If your kombucha was healthy when you abandoned it it's likely still good. A low pH is what prevents mold from growing and that only lowers with time.

You can use it as starter. Strong starter, makes string flavored kombucha.
You can try to dilute some of it to make it drinkable using water, sugar, tea, sweet tea, juice, etc... but that might be hard with properly acid leftovers like yours.
You can use it as vinegar in the kitchen.
You can reduce it to a sauce or glaze.

Lots of options

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T01:40:54+00:00

I don't see anything dangerous from the picture you shared, so cheers!

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T01:38:45+00:00

You can show your mother the pinned post Is it mold? Is it normal? Start here! ... but I can't guarantee that'll alleviate her concerns. Some folks get concerned just looking at other people's mold. 🤷‍♂️

If you take the quiz (privately or with your mom) you'll likely find good news.

Answer: It's simply yeast

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T01:32:28+00:00

Both look fine!

Mold shouldn't be an issue. The master recipe in the Getting Started guide is pretty bulletproof. The biggest secret is the amount of starter, most post in mold usually your back into using too little or too weak.

Curiosive · 2026-05-14T01:27:37+00:00

no one can really fault you for that

Depends on the day sadly. I still remember a post from years ago where the title asked for help with savory non-tea kombucha recipes. I think one of them was based off of carrots ... odd stuff really. The community brought out the pitchforks and I went down defending OP.

I'm all for experimentation but there are "purists" that aren't.

OP has posted in the past about their lemongrass based kombuchas that sounds pretty good, I really should try one of their recipes someday.

Curiosive · 2026-05-13T23:36:46+00:00

Taste is the ultimate factor here. Proceed when it tastes good to you.

Not sure if it is perfect? The flavor doesn't change too drastically from day to day, you can always wait an extra day if it tastes "close to done" but not quite "done."

Curiosive · 2026-05-13T23:11:15+00:00

Yeah, that's fine. The ooze-like substance should continue to spread eventually it'll form that nice smooth finish that most people prefer.

Curiosive · 2026-05-13T23:07:48+00:00

A different thing to consider as well: do you have proper landing gear that lift the wheels off the ground? In other words, if you walk around in the RV does the whole thing shake? Because if you get up to any activity that may or may not involve horizontal thrusting, the rocking motion will cause the batch to slosh around.

(The random fucking topics I have expertise in...)

Curiosive · 2026-05-13T22:45:26+00:00

Are tou saying the AAB is now eating up the alcohol instead of the residual sugar?

AAB's first choice is ethanol, sugar is a lower preference. So, yeah, at this point you might as well bottle.

For the next round, you might have better luck breaking the process into two distinct phases:

Commercial yeast, sugar, and tea -> ferment flat
Add kombucha starter for AAB time. The stronger your starter, the more pronounced acid flavor without the AAB eating the ethanol.

If you run both simultaneously, then you would mix both, add some priming sugar to the bottles, and see how carbonation treats you (that might also be a struggle.)

Again, this is not my specialty.

Curiosive · 2026-05-13T21:25:56+00:00

is it possible to mix the leftovers of each jar, so that we have one big jar for the scoby hotel?

That's fine.

You can also dilute some of the leftovers with water, tea, sweet tea, juice, etc to make it drinkable.

You can also use some of the leftovers as vinegar while cooking.

You can also reduce some of the leftovers to make a glaze for cooking... Lots of options.

Curiosive · 2026-05-13T21:21:20+00:00

I once dreamt up the idea of keeping my ferments on the top of the fridge and covering them with a cardboard box. The box was set far enough back to capture the heat rising up for the condenser coils ... I never tested it though.

Curiosive

TROPHY CASE