Initial Preparation

In preparation to make Kombucha tea, one must have ready a few simple items and to keep in mind to use only glass and plastic, not metal.

• White sugar
• Tea
• Glass container
• Cloth material
• Rubber bands
• Kombucha SCOBY
• Kombucha starter mixture

How to Make Kombucha tea, an Overview

Clean pure water will be heated to boiling on a stove, at which time a specific amount of sugar will be added. Heat is turned off and sugar mixture stirred to ensure it’s completely dissolved. Tea bags are added and allowed to steep until water has cooled naturally. Once at room temperature, the sugary tea mixture is transferred from heating pot to a glass container where it will remain undisturbed for an entire week. Kombucha starter mixture is added into the liquid and stirred gently. Kombucha culture (SCOBY) is placed in the mixture, cloth material is placed over the opening and fastened in place with a rubber band.

Place glass container in a spot that can remain undisturbed during its transformation time and leave sit for at least 7 days.

How to Make Kombucha tea, Detailed Instructions

1. Heat your desired amount of pure clean water to boiling – I personally use and recommend distilled water, but reverse osmosis (ro) water would be fine too. I use distilled water because it’s just H2O and nothing else. Once boiled, remove from heat. No picture of this, because it would be pretty boring. Imagine a pot of hot water.

2. Add Sugar – Use 1 to 1.5 cups of white sugar for every gallon of water. A gallon is 4 litres more or less (it’s not really, but it’s close enough). In metric, the numbers are thus: 2 to 3 ounces for each litre, or 8 to 12 ounces per gallon.

Stir the sugar until it’s completely dissolved. Then stir a little more.

Sugar is the food source for the Kombucha culture and is consumed during fermentation.

3. Add the tea bags – For best results, use only black tea. 2 tea bags per litre, or 8 per gallon. Tea adds nitrogen for the culture, allowing it a happy environment to produce the beverage. Steep the tea until the mixture cools, so basically put them in and walk away. Once cooled to room temperature, wring the bags out into the mixture and discard.

4. Pour sugar tea solution into clean glass container - Pour nearly to top, leaving room for a little Kombucha starter solution to be added.

5. Test the temperature - make sure that the sugary tea solution has cooled to room temperature.

6. Add the Kombucha starter – You should already have starter Kombucha from a previous batch or from a friend who’s provided it. It’s possible to begin Kombucha from scratch using some starter, but it takes a little longer and requires more care.

How much Kombucha starter to begin with depends on how much Kombucha you’re making. Ideally, you should use 10 to 25% of the final amount desired. 1 cup per litre for example.

Kombucha loves a sugary, nitrogen filled, low pH environment. The starter should be on the lower end of the pH scale (more like vinegar) when added to your new batch. See my article on Best Way to Make Kombucha for more info on pristine conditions.

7. Add the live Kombucha culture (SCOBY) to the mixture – take careful consideration of the temperature you’re putting the SCOBY into before making this move. The bacteria yeast culture is very temperature sensitive. Your mixture should be at room temperature, or slightly above. Best fermenting temperatures are between 21 and 29 degrees Celsius.

This was the first time I used this 2 gallon glass container so I added 3 scoby’s from my previous smaller batches.

In the background, you can see my starter Kombucha tea with a few scoby’s in it.

8. Cover the container – The container must be allowed to breathe, but not allow anything into it. Fruit flies love Kombucha tea, so cover it with a cloth material that allows air to move back and forth, but nothing in. I used cheese cloth originally, but was told that fruit flies could still get through it. Consider cutting up an old shirt, measuring before you cut so that the piece fits over the top. A wider mouth opening allows for better air exposure and a better fermentation.

9. Use a rubber band to seal the material on top.

10. Place in a warm area and allow to ferment – Avoid direct sunlight, but allow for room temperature to above room temperature conditions, and allow for an undisturbed setting for at least a week. Fermentation times vary according to conditions, but a week is typical.

Kombucha loves warmth, and goes dormant in the cold. Ideal conditions are 21 to 29 degrees Celsius. Direct sunlight can harm the culture and reduce its life span, but it does not need to be kept away from light, just direct sunlight.

Secondary preparation

Bottles….

You’re going to need bottles to store the finished product, so begin collecting them over the week while the Kombucha is fermenting. Glass bottles are preferred and should be able to be capped with a strong fitting. Wine bottles with screw tops work well as are specialty beer bottles with the resealable corking system. Canadian Pellegrino sparkling water bottles come with a screw top, but US versions have single use caps. Rubber corked wine bottles can be re-used but be aware that Kombucha under pressure can push through the cork or even pop them out. This happened one time in our RV and scared the crap out of my cat!

Also, a funnel is considered a good tool to assist in bottling Kombucha, so find and purchase a funnel if you don’t already have one.

When to Bottle the Kombucha tea

Starting with a very sugary tea mixture, the Kombucha culture consumes the sugar over time into the beverage we drink. Over the course of 4 to 14 days (or more), the beverage becomes lower and lower pH (more acidic) and moves from sweet to sour. Knowing when to bottle Kombucha is based both on taste and on desired health benefits. Gunther Frank and I both agree that drinking Kombucha should be based on health benefits first and taste second.

Good Kombucha tea should taste like a cross between apple cider and apple cider vinegar.

Somewhere around the 7 day mark, pour off a few ounces of tea and taste it. See if it’s to your liking. When you do this test with your first batch, it would be hard to discern between sweetness levels, not having experienced how sour it can become. Simply make a judgement call and go with it. If it’s too sweet yet, leave it another day and test again.

It’s that simple.

Bottling Kombucha

Bottling for the purpose of this article is very straight forward.

I like bottles that have the resealable corking systems like this beer bottle but any glass bottle will suffice. I’ve found beer bottles like this one in two different sizes. This is the smaller of the two.

Pour the tea into your bottles but save 10 to 25% for your next batch.

Keep the SCOBY culture with this starter tea. If you aren’t able to make more for a few days or longer, cover and put in the fridge. It will become lower pH and more vinegary, perfect for your next batch of tea.

Notes:
The Kombucha SCOBY may float on the surface of your jar, or it may sink to the bottom. Either way is fine and a new baby SCOBY will form on the top of your working mixture. They may join together producing a thicker and thicker culture. This is normal.

Treat your SCOBY with care. It’s heat sensitive. If you aren’t using it for an extended period of time, keep it with a little starter and put it in the fridge in it’s own container. Preferably glass.

It’s best to start with smaller quantities of Kombucha, no larger than 2 litres (half a gallon) until your SCOBY becomes more robust and able to handle larger amounts.

What? Me? Dehydrated?

I make it a point to be very conscious about the amount of water I drink. Water is critical to so very many functions in the human body, and given the amount of training I do, I’m drinking even more water to account for water lost during sweat and other exertion. I’ve always thought that I’ve been very aware of how much I’ve been drinking, but a recent body composition analysis told me that I was dehydrated.

You’ve GOT to be kidding me. I tend to piss people off because I keep talking about water all the time and encouraging them to drink more, and now I’ve found that I’m not drinking enough water.

That got my attention very quickly.

I made some changes to my daily routine and actually began keeping accurate water logs. I also decided to look at some science behind water absorption and how to increase water absorption. I took a three fold approach:

1. Drink more water
2. Measure the amount of water I’m drinking
3. Increase water absorption

Increasing Water Absorption

So what are the right conditions then, and how do we improve them and increase the absorption rate of the water we’re drinking? Great question.

Without getting into a huge amount of detail about it, lets just say that there are a lot of minerals involved in an ideal balanced blood chemistry for human health. Our hunter gather ancestors got on average, 11,000 mg of potassium per day and 700 mg of sodium. That’s a a ratio of almost 16:1. They acheived that by consuming a diet super rich in plants, fruits, nuts and seeds. Compare that to today’s average intakes of 2500mg and 7000mg or a ratio of (nearly) 1:3 potassium to sodium.

So, based on our origins, the natural approach to increasing water absorption is based on our diet and that being, a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds and completely excluding any additional salt.

Step by step, here’s how to increase your water absorption

1. Eliminate all additional salt in your diet – DO NOT add salt to anything.

2. Increase your vegetables, nuts and seed consumption – with an emphasis on dark leafy greens such as Swiss chard, collards, mustard greens, spinach. This will increase potassium in your diet as well as amounts of fiber.

3. Eat Chia Seeds – Chia seeds absorb 12 times their weight in water. In addition to being a fantastic source of fiber and Omega 3’s, Chia absorbs water and carries it into the colon where it can be passed along into the body at a slower rate. Instead of drinking water and hoping some of it is absorbed, eating your water can be a way to slow the process down and allow it a timed release. Much like timed release of vitamins, you can time release your water. Chia seeds are an amazing food and part of my Desert Island Foods.

4. Supplement with Glutamine – Glutamine is one of the most over looked and under used weight loss supplements I’ve ever seen. It’s used by every cell of the body for energy, immune system function and as craving control for both carbohydrates and alcohol. Where water intake is concerned, glutamine improves water uptake into the cells because it depends on sodium for transport. Glutamine is one of the amino acids that controls the volume of water in the cells and osmotic pressure in other tissues.

In layman terms, what that means is that glutamine plays a role in the ability of water to cross from the bloodstream into the cells and vice versa. The side bonus of this is that glutamine also plays a role in the cells ability to release toxins and molecular garbage. Glutamine plays a role in detoxification (in which water plays a highly important part as well).

Added Benefits of This Approach

Water is used in many ways in the body. We retain water if we don’t drink enough and if our sodium potassium ratio is off. If we’re not allowing water into the cell, we’re not allowing wastes out of the cell either and that most certainly is not healthy.

The additional benefits of the four approaches above is that we should release some retained water, allow our body to clean itself, improve our energy levels, improve our mood and become more regular at the same time.

Water is critical to health. By improving the quality of our water as well as our ability to improve the absorption of the water we do drink, we improve how we look and how we feel.

First and foremost, alcohol is a poison and your body must fight to get it out of your system. It directly impairs liver function thus severely hampering your metabolism of fat. If fat loss is your main goal moderation is a key. I have trained many adults who like there nightly beverage, but they never or rarely lose body fat. I would suggest limiting alcohol consumption to once a week if fat loss is your goal.

When your liver is processing alcohol it will stop all other metabolic functions. It will do so until it rids your body of ethanol toxicity which is the by product of alcoholic consumption. This process leads many times to stubborn fat, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and syndrome X.

Drinking in excess will also contribute to fat gain not loss. If you think you are going to gain muscle mass while drinking think again! Your liver is to0 busy doing something it does not want to do, process alcohol instead of amino acids. In addition, alcohol reduces testosterone.

We have not even touched on how many extra calories alcohol consumption can add to your daily caloric intake. As my good friend Tom Venuto states, “Those calories add up so quickly.” Think about how much you consume and the caloric value of each drink. Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram. This is almost twice that of carbohydrates and protein and just under the 9 grams per calorie for fat. Here is an example: consuming 2-3 drinks a day can add up to over 400 calories extra each and every day. Multiply that by one week and you are over 2700 calories extra. That is over a half a pound.

According to studies drinking alcohol increases visceral adipose tissue. This is the fat around your body organs. NOT HEALTHY! Other studies suggest alcohol consumption increases and stimulates appetite. I remember when I went through my Nutrition and Lifestyle Courses, alcohol was an afternoon subject and I recall this sobering thought, “If you really want to piss off your entire digestive system and set your body up for a total metabolic nightmare, drink alcohol before you eat.”

Another item I have learned from Tom Venuto was the simple but often overlooked factor that by doing something everyday becomes habit-forming behavior. The daily routine of consuming an innocent evening drink will lead to the ill affects of alcohol consumption.

Consuming alcohol again stops all fat burning, adds extra calories, increases estrogen level (stubborn fat), increases appetite and makes you more easily persuaded to eat that entire cheese cake.

There are some simple guidelines you can follow that will not only help you stay on the fat burning path, but will encourage better overall health.

Drinking red wine is much better for you then drinking beer. Red wine contains some good things that can benefit your health. On the other hand consuming beer, which contains hops and are highly estrogenic, will lead to more fat gain and harder fat loss.

Try to stay away from extra sweet drinks with added sugars. This will keep your blood sugar from a massive spike while having a drink. Have you ever wondered why are these drinks are so popular?

I would highly suggest that you read my stubborn fat solutions report (If you think you have stubborn fat) and to avoid alcohol for at least two weeks while your detoxify your liver and get started on a friendly fat burning environment.

Follow the European model; eat some fat or protein with your wine. The more food you have in your belly the slower the absorption. It also aids in insulin regulation. Avoid high carbohydrates snack with alcohol. It carries many metabolic problems like insulin elevation and high fat levels in your blood stream.

According to nutrition writer Ori Hofmelker below is a list of good to bad:

Alcohol – Good to Bad

1. Red wine – Best
2. White wine
3. Champagne
4. Vodka
5. Gin
6. Rum
7. Whiskey
8. Cognac
9. Sweet wines
10. Sweet mixed drinks
11. Liqueurs
12. BEER! Worst

Some common problems with alcohol consumption

• Reduced testosterone
• Increased estrogen
• Increased hydration
• Inability to absorb vital nutrients

In summary, I would suggest eating an anti-estrogenic, well- balanced diet and minimize alcohol consumption until you reach your fat loss goals. This will also aid in your quest for a set of six pack abs.

To Get More Information About Fat Loss and Toning Your Abs
Go to: Firm and Flatten Your Abs:

Coach David Grisaffi,
Tacoma Washington

Many serious lifters will argue that underneath clothes, muscular shoulders make the greatest contribution toward the overall appearance of the upper body.

The shoulder is a 3-headed muscle that performs the function of lifting and rotating the arm. It consists of the anterior region (the front), the medial region (the middle) and the posterior region (the rear). These heads can be stimulated in the gym using two different movements: an overhead press and a raise.

The overhead press is the meat and potatoes of effective shoulder training. There isn’t a single lift out there that can match the incredible shoulder-stimulating effect of a basic overhead pressing movement. Both a barbell and a dumbbell can be used for this exercise, but dumbbells are the best overall choice.

Dumbbells allow you to move through a more natural range of motion and also don’t allow one arm to cheat for the other. They also place a greater amount of total stress on the shoulder region in comparison to the barbell, which shifts some of the stress to the upper chest.

I would recommend using the seated overhead dumbbell press as your core shoulder movement. Grab a pair of dumbbells and sit on a bench with a vertical back support. Press the dumbbells overhead until your elbows are just short of locking out, and then lower them back to shoulder level.

Side Lateral Raise

The next exercise to look into is a basic side lateral raise, which can also be performed with a pair of dumbbells. Side laterals are an isolation exercise and will shift the majority of the stress to the medial head of the shoulder. This will build greater shoulder width and will contribute to that wide upper body look. Stand with your knees slightly bent and hold a pair of dumbbells with your palms facing inward. With a slight bend in your arms, raise the dumbbells up to shoulder level and then lower them back to the starting position.

Two Lifts is All You Need

When it comes to training your shoulders for maximum size and strength, a basic overhead press and a side lateral raise is all you need. It’s very important to realize that the shoulders are stimulated on virtually every single upper body exercise that you perform and therefore they do not require a lot of direct work.

Most people perform far too much work on their shoulders and actually hinder their gains as a result. Because of this I typically do not recommend that you perform isolation exercises for the anterior and posterior heads.

The anterior heads are heavily stressed during all chest pressing movements while the posterior heads are hit equally hard on all rowing movements for the back. A couple of extra sets won’t hurt, but you should try to minimize the volume as much as you can.

The key to massive shoulders is quality, not quantity.

Here are a couple of sample shoulder routines that you can use:

Shoulder Routine #1

Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press – 2 sets of 5-7 reps
Standing Dumbbell Side Laterals – 1-2 sets of 10-12 reps

If you insist on performing isolation exercises for the front and rear heads, you can use this routine:

Shoulder Routine #2

Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press – 2 sets of 5-7 reps
Standing Dumbbell Side Laterals – 1-2 sets of 10-12 reps
Standing Front Dumbbell Raise – 1 set of 10-12 reps
Seated Rear Lateral Dumbbell Raise – 1 set of 10-12 reps

There you have it.

All sets should be taken to complete muscular failure where no additional reps can be completed using proper form. Keep a detailed record of each workout and strive for continual improvement from week to week by either increasing the resistance or the number of reps performed.

If you want to learn the specific training methods for hitting all of your other muscle groups, check out my website by clicking the link below. You can gain instant access to a complete online muscle-building video lesson series that outlines the proper techniques for maximizing your muscle gains in your chest, back, arms, legs and abs, with a special lesson dedicated to each…