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27 May, day when we received scoby

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29 may

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5 June

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8 June

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20 June

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5 July, after the tea has been changed

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Types of sugar tested (Independent Variables)

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Types of sugar tested (Independent Variables)

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1st testing: same amount of each type of sugar (Week 3)

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1st testing: same amount of each type of sugar (Week 3)

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Conditions that affect the brewing of kombucha 

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Conditions that affect the brewing of kombucha 

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1. Temperature in which the scoby was grown in

2. Amount of sugar that was added into the tea

3. Type of sugar that was added into the tea

4. Amount of surface area of scoby exposed to oxygen

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FIRST TESTING FOR p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR LEVEL

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FIRST TESTING FOR p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR LEVEL

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The results of our first testing shows that the teas are all relatively acidic and that there is little variation in their p.H. levels. the highest is palm sugar tea, followed by honey tea, brown sugar tea and lastly our control tea. The sugar levels of all the teas are in decreasing order with honey tea being the sweetest and the control tea being the most bitter.

This disproves our hypothesis that control tea will be the sweetest.

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2nd testing: More sugar was added (Week 3)

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2nd testing: More sugar was added (Week 3)

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Research Question: Which sugar has the best effect on scoby’s growth?

Aim: To find out how the type of sugar affect the growth of scoby's

Hypothesis: Scoby will grow best in the control set up, which is white sugar.

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SECOND TESTING OF p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR PERCENTAGE

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SECOND TESTING OF p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR PERCENTAGE

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The second testing of our kombucha tea shows that brown sugar tea has the highest p.H. level, followed by the palm sugar tea, honey tea and the most acidic being the control tea. The honey tea still has the highest sugar level, followed by the control tea, palm sugar tea and brown sugar tea being the most bitter.

We can see the changes that have occurred in the time from the first test. The control tea has increased in sugar level and that the increase in acidity of honey tea is the largest followed by the control and the brown sugar tea. However, the palm sugar tea has not had such a drastic increase in acidity as compared to the other three. The sweetness level of the honey and control teas increased much more than the other two teas.

These results disprove our hypothesis that the sweetest tea would be the control tea.

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1. https://www.instructables.com/id/how-to-grow-a-kombucha-scoby-mother/
2. https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-your-own-kombucha-scoby-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-202596
3. http://kombuchahome.com/how-to-care-for-your-kombucha-scoby-so-it-lives-for-years/
4. https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/kombucha/how-surface-area-affects-kombucha-brew-time/
5. https://happykombucha.co.uk/pages/instructions

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1. Make 1 cup of black tea(we used Ceylon tea)
2. While the tea is still hot, add 1-2 teaspoons of white sugar, mix till the sugar is dissolved, then cool completely to room temperature
3. Pour the tea into the jar with the scoby until 80% filled and cover the jar opening with a cloth and secure the cloth with rubberband
4. Keep the jar away from direct sunlight in a cool and dry area of 20°C -25°C
5. Pour away most of the old tea and add a new batch every 4-6 weeks

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Third TESTING OF p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR PERCENTAGE (Week 5)

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Third TESTING OF p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR PERCENTAGE (Week 5)

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The p.H. meter was broken, so we did not manage to measure the p.H. level.

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12 july: We split the scoby into two jars. A new layer is forming for this jar.

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12th july: This jar's scoby is a little thicker than the other jar

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16th july: We transferred the scoby into four different jars for our project. Our variables are the types of sugar added: Honey(H) , Brown sugar(Brown) , Palm sugar (Palm) and white sugar(control/C),  which was the original sugar used to grow the scoby.
This is the honey jar.

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16th july: This is the control jar with white sugar.

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16th july: This is the brown sugar jar

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16th july: This is the palm jar.

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22 July, Honey

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22 July, Honey

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22 July, Palm sugar

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22 July, Brown sugar

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22 July, Brown sugar

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22 July, Palm sugar

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FOURTH TESTING OF p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR PERCENTAGE 

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FOURTH TESTING OF p.H. LEVEL AND SUGAR PERCENTAGE 

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Our data results of p.H. Level and Sugar percentage of the teas from our fourth and last testing. As we can see, the honey and control teas have the lowest, and equal, p.H. level, followed by brown sugar tea and the highest being the palm sugar tea. The sugar level of the palm sugar tea is the lowest followed by brown sugar and control tea, and honey tea continuously has had the highest sugar level.

The changes observed was that all three teas that had the largest acidity increase previously, now remained somewhat constant with no significant increase of decrease in acidity. However, the palm sugar tea decreased drastically in acidity and became almost water-like. The sugar level in all teas dropped drastically to become very bitter.

These results disprove our hypothesis which states that the control tea will be the sweetest  and also disproves most theories read online that honey in kombucha kills the scoby.

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22 July, White sugar(Control)

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22 July, White sugar(Control)

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25 July, White sugar(control)

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25 July, White sugar(control)

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25 July, Honey

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25 July, Honey

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25 July, Brown sugar

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25 July, Brown Sugar

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25 July, Palm sugar

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25 July, Palm sugar

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1 August, White sugar(control)

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1 August, White sugar(control)

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1 August, Honey

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1 August, Honey

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1 August, Brown sugar

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1 August, Brown sugar

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1 August, Palm sugar

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1 August, Palm sugar

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7 August, White sugar(control)

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7 August, White sugar(control)

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7 August, Honey

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7 August, Honey

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7 August, Brown sugar

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7 August, Brown sugar

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7 August, Palm sugar

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7 August, Palm sugar

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14 August, White sugar(control)

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14 August, White sugar(control)

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14 August, Honey

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14 August, Honey

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14 August, Brown sugar

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14 August, Brown sugar
Mould had grown on top of the scoby.

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14 August, Palm sugar

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14 August, Palm sugar
Mould had grown on top of the scoby.

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From our experiment, we found out that Palm sugar was not good for the scoby’s growth as mentioned in other websites, followed by brown sugar, and white sugar (control), while honey was unexpectedly the best for our scoby’s growth. The reason for this might be that honey contained the highest concentration of sugar, thus with more sugar, the scoby grew better than the others. From the three data collected, we can also see that control is slightly better at creating a better p.H. Level for scoby to grow, as the p.H. level of the control tea was lower than that of the honey tea.

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1. Make 1 cup of black tea (We used Ceylon tea)

2. While the tea is still hot, add 1-2 teaspoons of white sugar. However, be careful not to burn yourself with the boiling tea. Mix until the sugar is dissolved, then cool completely to room temperature

3. Pour the tea into the jar with the scoby until 80% filled and cover the jar opening with a cloth and secure the cloth with rubber band

4. Keep the jar away from direct sunlight in a cool and dry area of 20°C -25°C

5. Pour away most of the old tea and add a new batch every 4-6 week

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The jars for our experiment are collected from home. As the jars are contributed by different members, the jars are of different sizes.

White cane sugar was purchased. It is the control sugar of our setups and white sugar is the most typical and basic kind of sugar.

Pure honey was brought from home. It is an independent variable of our experiment. Honey contains a high amount of sugar content so we wanted to find out if that is beneficial for the growth of scoby.

Brown sugar brought from home. It is another independent variable of our experiment. We had brown sugar available at home, so we thought that it would be convenient for us to investigate on it as well.

Palm sugar was purchased. Articles on growing scoby did not recommend palm sugar as a sugar to grow healthy scoby. We decided to investigate why this was the case.

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The sugar is the food for the growing scoby, so it's important to give it something it can break down easily. Scoby needs extra sweet tea to grow thick and healthy, therefore it needs a lot of sugar to digest.

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Our first change is after we made a mistake in adding different amounts of sugar when making the tea.

Initially, we estimated the amount of sugar and did not measure exactly 4.25ml when adding the sugar into the tea.

This might cause the growth of scoby to be due to the amount of sugar, in addition to the type of sugar.

After making this mistake, we immediately rectified our method and redid our experiment. We measured the different types of sugars to be exactly 4.25ml before adding it into the tea.

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Our first modification is that we separated the starter tea and scoby into two different jars for the growing of scoby.

We also added more new tea into the two jars.

It is more efficient that way as the scoby will have more sugar to feed on and grow more since we have four different variables.

Our second modification is that we added more sugar into the 4 jars with different variables, as when initially we only put 4.25ml of sugar per cup of tea, our scoby were not growing thicker, and instead became thinner.

We found that that the more sugar in the tea, the happier the scoby as the scoby will have more sugar feed on and eat and will therefore grow better.

Thus, we added 7.5ml of sugar with half a cup of tea. into the four jars until the jars will almost fully filled. Indeed, after that, the scoby grew thicker.

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1. Wrap the opening of each jar with cheesecloth/sieve

2. Pour the contents of the jar into another clean jar, letting the scoby separate from the tea and settle on the cheesecloth

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until there is no more scoby in the Kombucha Tea.

4. Observe the Tea

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The teas that contained honey and white sugar to grow the scoby and were still healthy were the same shade of red as the start of the project but is not as clear as the start of the experiment. For example, when we put in a straw to test the clarity of the tea, we can only see a dark shape in the liquid. When light was shone through the control tea, the clearest tea, majority of the light was able to pass through, and a beacon of light yellow light was seen from the bottom of the jar. However, the murkiest tea, the palm sugar tea, was only able to see a faint greying circular light.

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The scoby had the best growth when grown in the tea made with honey, followed by white sugar, and brown sugar, and the scoby had the worst growth when grown in the tea made with palm sugar.

When the sugar level of the tea is low, the scoby will not grow well and will grow thinly instead, and so will not be able to make the tea acidic enough, which in turn causes a higher pH level, and thus a higher risk of mould growing on top of the scoby culture.

Honey enhances the acids in Kombucha, which may be why no mould had grown on the scoby in the honey jar. White sugar ferments scoby because the yeasts can easily break the white sugar down into glucose and fructose and thus into beneficial acetic and gluconic acid, which may be why no mould had grown in the scoby in the control jar.

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Questions we had at the start of the experiment

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Questions we had at the start of the experiment

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1. Which type of sugar will be the best for the growth of scoby?

2. Which type of sugar will make the p.H. level most suitable for kombucha?

3. What does each specific type of sugar contain which cause the differing scoby pH level?

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Solution:

1. We will observe the different scoby in the 4 jars with different types of sugar.

2. We will conduct the experiment and test the pH level of the kombucha that are made with different types of sugar. (Most suitable pH level for kombucha is 2.5-3.5)

3. We will research on what minerals each sugar contain and how that contributes to different pH level of kombucha. The We will test the pH level of the kombucha and see if that matches.

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Results:

1. Honey was the best type of sugar as it the scoby grew the thickest in it.

2. Control and Honey were the best type of sugar to make pH of the kombucha the most suitable for Scoby growth. Whether the pH level is suitable for scoby growth actually depends on the scoby growth itself. When the scoby grows healthier, it makes the Kombucha more acidic and so the pH level is lower, and thus a better pH level for scoby. Since the scoby grew well in Control and Honey, the p.H. levels were lower than the Brown sugar and Palm sugar.

3. It might have been the amount of sugar/simple carbohydrates in the different types of sugar which caused the different pH levels. Since scoby grows better when there is more sugar added, and honey contained more sugar than the other types of sugar, the scoby grew best in Honey, making the tea more acidic and thus increasing the pH level. We also did not add a lot of sugar into the jars, so the scoby in the other jars might not have had enough sugar for growth while the scoby in the honey jar had enough sugar to grow well, thus making the results seem more obvious.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/16wmOvYgCFzlmaxIlqlZjsgiFpqbTm3mGRij2TLLmvhY

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5th July, Term 3 week 1

A new batch of tea was added, as it has been around a month since the scoby was given to us. Scoby sank when the new tea was added as it was disturbed by the tea.

12th July, Term 3 week 2

We separated the scoby culture into 2 different jars for the scoby to be able to grow more, as we have many variables.

15th July, Term 3 week 3 (no pictures are attached)

Our mistake: We added different amounts of sugar into each of the jars, which caused the sugar level in our jars to be different, we realised that this will cause our data testing results to be inconsistent.

16th July, Term week 3

After realising our mistake, we redid our experiment and added the same amount of sugar into the tea, before pouring into each of the jars. Afterwards, we realised another mistake, which is the different amount of tea in each of the jars. We immediately rectified the mistake and made the amount of tea each jar contained to be equal.

22nd July, Term 3 week 3

As our scoby didn't grow any thicker, we decided to add more sugar into each of their jars, from the original 4.25ml per jar to 15 ml per jar. We did not pour out any tea but added extra tea (about ¼ cup) with 3.75ml of sugar to each of our jar.

25th July, Term 3 week 4
New layers of scoby are forming in every jar as more sugar was added in to jars.

1st August, Term 3 week 5

Scoby in the 4 jars are growing thicker, signalling that there is still enough sugar for the scoby to grow.

7th August, Term 3 week 6

The 4 scoby in the jars did not grow much, and the scoby in the palm sugar jar sank. However, a very thin layer was growing on top of the jar. There was a foreign thing in the palm sugar scoby, so we removed it, but damaged the scoby, which explains the creases and the hole.

14th August, Term 3 week 7

The control and honey scoby are doing fine, but the brown sugar and palm sugar scoby have mould growing on the top layers. This can be due to the insufficient amount of sugar in the jars, which affected the scoby’s growth negatively because Scoby needs sugar to survive. Therefore, as the scoby is not healthy, it will not be able to make the tea acidic so the mould would not be killed, which have caused to grow. On the following day, we went to the data collection and found out the brown sugar and palm sugar tea are of higher pH levels than lower sugar levels than the control and honey jars.

Term 3 Week 8 (no photos are attached)

The control and honey tea got murkier as time went by, and the palm sugar scoby sunk on 20 August, the honey scoby sunk on 23 August, while the control scoby sunk on 24 August. The brown sugar scoby is still floating, but is completely covered in mould with a thin layer of white powdery substance on the TOP of the scoby.

Term 3 Week 9 (no photos attached)

The scoby in the control, honey and palm sugar jar remained at the bottom, while the brown sugar scoby remained floating on top. The control and honey tea got murkier, while the brown sugar and palm sugar tea remained as murky, and the tea was darker and murkier in the brown sugar and palm sugar jars than the control and honey jars.

Term 3 Week 10

The photos were taken after the scoby was separated from the tea, to observe the clarity and colour of the tea in different jars. The separation of the tea from the scoby from the jar into a cup caused bubbles formed on the top of some teas. As seen from the pictures, the colour of the tea from the control and honey jars are lighter than that of the brown sugar and palm sugar jars.

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3 September, White sugar(control)

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3 September,  White sugar(control)

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3 September, Honey

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3 September, Honey

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3 September, Brown sugar

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3 September, Brown sugar

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3 September, Palm sugar

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3 September, Palm sugar

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Video (Week 1-3)

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Video (Week 4-7)

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Video (Week 8-10)

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11ySlWlkCuvS_isWqmO5Q6eIJNGzQSYTXMmkfHHY9bv4

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Line Graph of the sugar level of the 4 variables

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Line Graph of the sugar level of the 4 variables

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Horizontal axis: Week number
Vertical axis: Sugar level
Green: Control (White sugar)
Blue: Honey
Red: Brown sugar
Orange: Palm sugar