Zippox
Well-Known Member
![20220106_231644.jpg 20220106_231644.jpg](https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/data/attach/695/695440-20220106-231644.jpg)
I'll go over what I did and see if anyone can help figure out my next steps!
-Scobys have been in a hotel for about 8 months.
-Took one out (same size as front jar), and sawed it with a bread knife as I couldn't peel it.
-Kept the top and discarded the rest of the scoby
-Made a new batch of mostly black tea and some green as I had always done. Yep, a cup of sugar too was added.
-I got rid of the creepy looking goopy stuff at the bottom (see the image below), but kept a cup of the liquid to add to the batch.
-I checked it after 8 days by taking a spoon to the top of the scoby, pushing down slightly to get liquid onto it, and it tasted very vinegary. So I decided to bottle it.
-Almost certain that the strong vinegar taste was just from the layers of the scoby getting pressed out, and not representative of the whole brew now that I think of it.
-The bottles took more than 5 days to get some carbonation and when I tasted it, it was extremely sweet. This is because I clearly didn't ferment it enough.
So here's where I stand today. I brewed a new batch 2 weeks ago using that same scoby. It is still sweet tea and not acidic. There is some additional thin scoby growth on top.
What should I do? I have another giant scoby I could use that's chilling in the other hotel. I don't know what I did wrong so please ask for clarifications or point out where I may have misstepped.
Also, here's a gnarly photo of the bottom gunk after sitting for so long! To me it looks like people wearing ghost costumes; like a blanket over the head and arms.
![Screenshot_20220106-232628_Photos.jpg Screenshot_20220106-232628_Photos.jpg](https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/data/attach/695/695441-Screenshot-20220106-232628-Photos.jpg)