If a Kombucha colony doesn float, should it be thrown out?
John A. (Jack) Barclay — a member of the Kombucha mailing list, stated the following : “Someone was told that if the Kombucha colony doesn’t float to the top within a day or two, it should be thrown out. Not so. Whether the Kombucha floats or sinks or rests somewhere in the middle is a function of the density of the Kombucha compared to the density of the liquid. The density is affected by the amount and kind of sugar, temperature, water hardness, kind of tea etc. Each Kombucha will be slightly different in density depending on where and how it was grown and how dense the cellulose matrix is and the number and size of air pockets in the matrix. Which normally can’t be seen with the naked eye, but affect whether the Kombucha colony sinks or floats. It has often been recommended that if one can’t figure out where the new Kombucha is when looking at it, weigh the mother Kombucha to the bottom and the one that forms at the surface is the obvious offspring.
