I admit that I score pretty high on the list of crunchy. I bike everywhere, grow my own food and run a fermentation website. However, the idea of turning kombucha SCOBYs into food was beyond me. So the credit for this recipe goes out to my friend Mark.
Mark brought me a large jar of jerky… and it was… amazingly tasty! Even our kids, who were toddlers at the time, couldn’t get enough of it! So I decided to serve Kombucha SCOBY jerky to my not-so-crunchy book club, and everyone wondered what type of meat it was. They all assumed that the kombucha part of the jerky was in the sauce!
That makes this recipe a real winner!
Officially kombucha SCOBYs are mostly cellulose, so the jerky is basically flavour, probiotics and fiber. However, it’s a delicious way to use up extra SCOBYs!
PrintKombucha Scoby Jerky
Kombucha SCOBY jerky is a flavourful snack that is made with extra SCOBYs. It is full of probiotics and fiber.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 hours
- Total Time: 8 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: Serves 6-8 1x
- Category: Snacks
- Method: Dehydrated
Ingredients
- 5–6 thin kombucha SCOBYs (see notes for more info)
- 1 Tbsp grated ginger
- 1 Tbsp diced garlic
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 7 Tbsp honey
Instructions
- Cut the SCOBYs into strips.
- Grease your dehydrator trays and lay out the strips of kombucha SCOBYs.
- Dehydrate until most of the moisture is gone (about 4 hours at 105 F).
- Mix up the remaining ingredients into a marinade, and soak your SCOBYs for 24 hours.
- Grease your dehydrator trays again.
- Fully dehydrate the SCOBYs at 105F for 8 hours.
- Store at room temperature in an airtight jar and consume within 1 month.
Notes
- The easiest way to get thin SCOBYs for this recipe is frequently harvest a thin SCOBY off the top of your kombucha. Alternatively you could try separating a thick SCOBY into layers, however, that is fairly difficult.
- If you aren’t a SCOBY growing person, you could simply sub-in thinly sliced firm tofu for delicious tofu jerky.
- If you don’t happen to have a dehydrator
, you could use your oven set on the lowest temperature and leave the door propped open with a wooden spoon.
, you could use your oven set on the lowest temperature and leave the door propped open with a wooden spoon.Keywords: probiotic, SCOBY, reuse, free, vegetarian, gluten free, summer, fall, spring
Very interesting! I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to force my extra scobies onto anyone who will take them. Glad to know there’s something else I can do with them, because I just can’t bring myself to compost them all!
My oven only goes to 170°F, and I don’t have a dehydrator. Any suggestions or tips to make this work?
Maybe heat your oven, then turn it off then put your jerky in to dry? If you have very thin slices of kombucha then it shouldn’t take too long.
If you have an 18quart cooker they some times go down far enough if not you can lift off the top to get the temp. I did this for yogurt in the past before I got mine.
Do you mean a slow cooker? Good idea! I haven’t tried it, but it certainly could work. You would definitely need to vent the lid so that the scoby can dry.
I would add a little liquid smoke and worsteshire sauce.
Sounds good! Neither of those things are in my pantry, so I didn’t think of them.
Hello I’m very interested in making Scoby jerky. I have the round dehydrator and was wondering how do you dehydrate the scobys without attracting flies?
I always throw cheese cloth over the hole in the centre of my dehydrator to prevent bugs from getting into my food. Enjoy!
any idea what the nutritional information for this might look like in terms of calories and proteins?
Scobys are mostly cellulose, so it would just be fiber from the scoby side of things. There is honey and soy sauce so those would add calories, but I think it would be very little per piece of scoby.
If you live in Arizona. Just dont turn on your AC.
I see people inquiring about what to do with no dehydrator. Instead of buying a dedicated dehydrator, can I recommend the Breville BOV900BSS model toaster oven? It has settings for proofing and dehydrating and is big enough to roast a chicken (but not a turkey). Since buying this several months ago the only time I ever use the wall oven (ancient thing with a pilot flame) is in the winter to incubate whatever I’ve got fermenting, and that’s just off the pilot.
Great suggestion! Thanks for sharing.
Dies the heat in the dehydrator kill off the probiotics?
If you use a setting below 100F (40C) then the kombucha SCOBY should still be probiotic!
I’ve tried slicing a thick scoby with a knife but that wasn’t working to well. I’ve found kitchen shears do the best job. My chickens LOVED their scoby worms! I would snip off pieces about the thickness of red worms using the kitchen shears. My ducks weren’t impressed with them.
If you don’t have a dehydrator and your oven only goes down to 170°, prop the oven door open a little, which you should do anyway. If you shut the door completely the humidity has no way to escape and it will take longer to dry. Trust me! Been there done that. I grow cultivated elderberries and one year I had an over abundance. I had elder berries in every dehydrator and still had a lot left so I put the rest in the oven, and closed the door..completely! 2 days later they were still soft/mushy! I learned the hard way to vent the oven.
Thanks for sharing! I love that your chickens eat SCOBYs, probably good for their digestion!
Hi there Can i use parchment paper on the racks while doing this or must the scobies be on the rack?
How long will these last for after being made?
Hum… they never last more than a week at my house! As long as they are fully dry, they should last as long as other dried foods. So several months I would imagine. Enjoy!