We are always trying to find new uses for things that would otherwise be discarded to the compost pile, the animals or disposed of. I am constantly chanting in my head, waste is a mentality. Naturally, after making kombucha for a while I had a large accumulation of scoby’s that I hadn’t wanted to throw out but just couldn’t figure out what to do with them.
So…I started researching. Here are a few of the things you can do with a scoby;
- Give one to a friend and kick start their fermenting adventure
- Feed it to chickens, pigs, or dogs (they love ‘em)
- Dehydrate it to make scoby jerky (I have not yet tried this one)
- Cut it up and add it to a smoothie
- Puree it with fruit and make fruit leather
- Or…..MAKE GUMMIES!
Which is what I did this week…Here’s how it went…
First I cleaned of the scoby by rinsing it and removing the threads that accumulate around it.
Then, I sliced it into strips with a VERY sharp knife (those are tough little buggers).
Then I turned it and sliced into cubes.
I took one cup of honey and one cup of sugar and brought it to a gentle boil in a pot. Once boiling I added the scoby and let it simmer, stirring constantly and watching so it doesn’t scorch or boil over, for 8 minutes.
Then, I removed it from the heat, added some powdered cinnamon and ginger and spread it out on some dehydrator sheets (making sure they weren’t all piled up). I then set the dehydrator to 120 degrees F and dehydrated the scoby for about 36 hours.
It smelled heavenly in my house as the scobys dehydrated (like apple pie).
I tentatively popped one in my mouth. Oh. My. Goodness. They are soooooo good. I walked around giving one to each of my kids. One by one they each followed me to the kitchen and asked for more. They ate about half of them the first day (then I put the rest into a jar and put them up high). Candy isn’t something that commonly stays in my house…we are going to have to make these last until the next batch of scoby is ready.
These are soooooo easy and soooooo good. And…even after I told my kids what was in them…they wanted more. Mom win!
I’d love to hear more about what you do with your scobys!
From my home fire to yours, hai hai.