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.
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.
Kombucha SCOBY Snacks
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.
- 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
- 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
- Cut the pellicles into thin strips.
- Grease your dehydrator
trays and lay out the strips of pellicles.
- 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!
- 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.
- Grease your dehydrator trays again.
- Fully dehydrate the pellicles (about 105F for 6-8 hours).
- Store at room temperature in an airtight jar and consume within 1 month.
trays and lay out the strips of pellicles.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
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.
precisely what I did!
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!
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?
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. 🙂
Great!
★★★★★
How will you prepare them fro the freezer?
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