A Rough Start and a Few Questions

[BOB21801]

I've been successfully making Kombucha and Water Kefir for quite some time, so I was excited to get my Ginger Plant, as I love the taste of ginger, but I got off to a rough start with my first few batches - my fault for not reading the directions closely. I was overdoing it with ingredients (included 3 TBS white sugar, 3 TBS raw organic sugar AND the juice from a 4" piece of ginger in the first few batches). I also let it ferment for too long (about a week). By the third batch It was tasting pretty bad when I finally decided to read the directions again, I rinsed my GP grains and cut back on ingredients. I used 3 TBS each of white sugar and palm sugar in the last 2 batches. I noticed an improvement in the one I finished and the next one will be bottled in the morning. It is getting better, but still not yet "delicious". First question - Am I on the right path now, or is there something else I should do? Also, am I right in assuming I'll want to use ginger juice at least sometimes? If not, wouldn't the finished product completely lose the ginger taste?

Also, I have a question about the scoby that has formed - What should I do with it? I've been transferring it to the new batch along with my GP grains, it's getting bigger and I'm not sure if I should continue transferring it from one batch to the next, or should I toss it or something else?

Lastly, I've been making about a quart at time, and I'm wondering if I could/should start making larger batches. I haven't noticed much, if any, growth in the grains (only the scoby), but I am seeing a bit more carbonation than the first few batches and it is tasting a bit better, but again, not yet "delicious". thanks for any advice you can offer.

[AlexP]

Ginger juice works best with a light sugar recipe. I've successfully done just ginger juice and white sugar, but if its struggling, you can give it some dark sugar. Yeah, without the ginger, it won't taste like ginger, but it can still have a great flavor. You can also just add some ginger spice flavor without the juice. It probably won't help the grains much, but it will give it that ginger flavor. As far as any film or scoby (if you do long ferments), just toss it. It's not needed at all. You can do larger batches, but I've had more success with quart and pint size batches. It can still work fine though for half gallon or full gallon batches, if you have enough GBP.

Alex