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Kombucha SCOBY Snacks (Pellicle Jerky)

How to make SCOBY snacks in the dehydrator.
Maple jerky kombucha SCOBY snacks

I admit that I score pretty high on the list of crunchy.  I bike everywhere, hang dry my laundry, and run a fermentation website.  However, the idea of turning kombucha SCOBYs into food was beyond me.  So the credit for these SCOBY snacks goes out to my friend Mark.

Kombucha pellicle snacks from the dehydrator
Maple SCOBY jerky.

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 pellicles are mostly cellulose, so the jerky is basically flavor, probiotics, and fiber.  So it doesn’t have any particular nutrient or caloric value. However, it’s a delicious way to use up extra kombucha pellicles!

Besides, who couldn’t use a bit of extra fiber in their diets?

The easiest way to harvest pellicles

This recipe works best with thin SCOBYs. Otherwise, the jerky is just too tough and chewy.

If you brew your own kombucha or vinegar, you probably have a few extra pellicles stashed somewhere at the back of your fridge. While it is possible to separate a thick SCOBY into thin layers… it’s also pretty time-consuming.

Here is the secret to getting nice thin pellicles:

  • Harvest young pellicles off the top of your kombucha or vinegar. 
  • Depending on how often you brew, it could take a month or so to collect up enough pellicles.
  • Don’t store the baby pellicles in a hotel or extra tea. Otherwise, they’ll start to thicken.
  • Instead, collect them in a container in the freezer so you can make a large batch of SCOBY snacks all at once.
Vinegar pellicle jerky and snacks
Plain SCOBY snacks & maple SCOBY jerky.
Print

Kombucha SCOBY Snacks

How to make SCOBY snacks in the dehydrator.
Print Recipe

★★★★★

5 from 1 reviews

Kombucha SCOBY snacks are chewy flavorful jerky that is made with extra pellicles. Not only is it delicious, but it is also full of probiotics and fiber! See the section above for details on how to harvest thin pellicles and the nutrition information for these snacks.

  • Author: Emillie
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 12 hours
  • Total Time: 12 hours 15 minutes
  • Yield: Serves 6-8 1x
  • Category: Snacks
  • Method: Dehydrated
  • Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Units Scale
  • 5–6 thin kombucha pellicles (SCOBYs), see the section above for harvesting recommendations
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce (or Braggs)
  • 3 Tbsp maple syrup (see notes for alternatives)
  • 1 Tbsp finely diced garlic
  • Optional 1 Tbsp peeled and grated ginger or finely diced chili pepper

Instructions

  1. Cut the pellicles into thin strips.
  2. Grease your dehydrator trays and lay out the strips of pellicles.
  3. Dehydrate until most of the moisture is gone (about 1-2 hours at 105 F). My daughter likes her kombucha SCOBY snacks without any extra flavor. So try a few at this point, you might enjoy them as well!
  4. For maple jerky, mix up the soy sauce, maple syrup, and garlic into a marinade. Feel free to add ginger and hot pepper for a spicy jerky. Soak the dehydrated pellicles for at least 2 hours, up to 24 hours.
  5. Grease your dehydrator trays again.
  6. Fully dehydrate the pellicles (about 105F for 6-8 hours).
  7. Store at room temperature in an airtight jar and consume within 1 month.

Notes

  • Vinegar pellicles work equally well. The photographed batch was made with a mix of vinegar and kombucha pellicles. See the section above for details.
  • Feel free to use your favorite liquid sweetener. We’ve tested the recipe with maple syrup and honey, but it would probably also work with brown rice syrup.
  • Several readers recommend adding little liquid smoke and Worcestershire sauce. Neither of these is in my pantry, so I haven’t tried it. But feel free to add whatever flavor you want to your jerky.
  • If you don’t happen to have a dehydrator, you could use your oven set at the lowest temperature and leave the door propped open with a wooden spoon.

Keywords: probiotic, SCOBY, reuse, free, vegetarian, gluten free, summer, fall, spring

Filed Under: Probiotic BeveragesTagged With: Kombucha, Leftovers, Snacks

Previous Post: « Buttermilk Layer Cake
Next Post: Fermented And Pickled Garlic Scapes »

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Comments

  1. Danielle

    July 2, 2015 at 11:13 am

    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!

    Reply
  2. Sal

    April 28, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    My oven only goes to 170°F, and I don’t have a dehydrator. Any suggestions or tips to make this work?

    Reply
    • Emillie

      April 28, 2016 at 1:25 pm

      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.

      Reply
      • Karin

        May 2, 2016 at 10:02 am

        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.

        Reply
        • Emillie

          May 2, 2016 at 10:05 am

          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.

          Reply
  3. Mollie

    October 6, 2016 at 8:32 pm

    I would add a little liquid smoke and worsteshire sauce.

    Reply
    • Emillie

      October 7, 2016 at 11:34 am

      Sounds good! Neither of those things are in my pantry, so I didn’t think of them.

      Reply
    • Zach

      September 27, 2021 at 2:33 pm

      precisely what I did!

      Reply
  4. Angela Chen

    July 12, 2017 at 12:54 pm

    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?

    Reply
    • Emillie

      July 12, 2017 at 1:09 pm

      I always throw cheese cloth over the hole in the centre of my dehydrator to prevent bugs from getting into my food. Enjoy!

      Reply
  5. Sarah

    October 7, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    any idea what the nutritional information for this might look like in terms of calories and proteins?

    Reply
    • Emillie

      October 9, 2017 at 7:06 am

      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.

      Reply
  6. Anonymous

    September 23, 2020 at 9:16 am

    If you live in Arizona. Just dont turn on your AC.

    Reply
  7. J

    November 29, 2020 at 3:58 am

    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.

    Reply
    • Emillie

      November 30, 2020 at 10:37 am

      Great suggestion! Thanks for sharing.

      Reply
  8. Maryann Sandifer

    December 26, 2020 at 12:36 pm

    Dies the heat in the dehydrator kill off the probiotics?

    Reply
    • Emillie

      December 27, 2020 at 8:53 am

      If you use a setting below 100F (40C) then the kombucha SCOBY should still be probiotic!

      Reply
  9. Tina Ward

    February 5, 2021 at 3:28 pm

    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.

    Reply
    • Emillie

      February 7, 2021 at 4:45 pm

      Thanks for sharing! I love that your chickens eat SCOBYs, probably good for their digestion!

      Reply
  10. Anonymous

    February 8, 2021 at 10:18 am

    Hi there Can i use parchment paper on the racks while doing this or must the scobies be on the rack?

    Reply
  11. Christy Walters

    August 14, 2021 at 9:50 am

    How long will these last for after being made?

    Reply
    • Emillie

      August 15, 2021 at 7:01 pm

      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!

      Reply
  12. Azza

    October 16, 2021 at 7:58 am

    Hi I found this recipe is very interesting. I never made or taste Kampuchea before. I don’t have the SCOPY as well so I had to start the experiment from the scratch. It took too long for the SCOPY to get developed, I is nearly a month ever since I started my experiment. The layer that is formed is very thin, I am not sure it will work.
    If I left this layer would another layer will be formed?

    Reply
    • Emillie

      October 17, 2021 at 6:58 pm

      Where did you get the kombucha SCOBY from? A store-bought bottle of kombucha? I think if you want to make kombucha SCOBY jerky, you probably should use the little SCOBY to brew more kombucha. Once it’s established you’ll have plenty of SCOBYs. 🙂

      Reply
  13. Nastya

    January 3, 2022 at 9:01 am

    Great!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  14. Scarlet

    June 10, 2022 at 5:57 am

    How will you prepare them fro the freezer?

    Reply
    • Emillie Parrish

      June 10, 2022 at 5:21 pm

      Hi Scarlet, They can be frozen in a zip-top bag. I don’t recommend freezing for long-term storage of SCOBYs that you want to brew with. It’s just not good for the SCOBY. However, in this case, the SCOBY is going to be turned into a snack. So freezing is fine! Cheers, Emillie

      Reply

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Hi, I'm Emillie, an island-dwelling fermentation enthusiast. Fermenting For Foodies features healthy recipes designed to feed your microbiome.
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