Kombucha likes warm weather. It does best at around 80° F. When I first started brewing Kombucha, it was still relatively warm out. Now that we have snow on the ground, it’s chillier in my house and I have no plans on keeping it heated to 80° F in here.
I have noticed that it is taking up to 2 weeks for my Kombucha to be ready to bottle, and even with 2 gallons brewing at all times, we have a few days between batches with no Kombucha to drink.
In addition, I have noticed that our Kombucha has had less carbonation since the weather got colder. Apparently that is a common effect when your Kombucha isn’t warm enough. And then I read that keeping your Kombucha too cold can also lead to mold problems – we don’t want that!
So, I started looking at ways to keep my Kombucha warmer.What I have set up now is 2 seedling mats in the cabinet with the Kombucha – one underneath the jars and one behind them.
Since we already had them on hand, I decided to give them a try first. I just put them up there with the Kombucha over the weekend, so I’ll let you know how it works out.
Ideally, I’d love to have the The Kombucha Mamma Year Round Heating System with Dimmer. Hannah from Kombucha Kamp designed these mats specifically for keeping Kombucha warm in moderate to cold climates.
You can watch this video to see how they work differently from the seedling mats I’m using now.