Visited a kombucha brewers house in Austin and saw their secret setup

I stopped by a buddy's place in Austin last weekend who brews kombucha for a small farmers market. He's got five gallon jars lined up on a custom shelf he built himself out of old pallets. What really caught me was his temperature control rig, he uses a reptile heating pad taped to the side of each jar with a thermostat dial. He said it keeps the fermentation steady at 78 degrees even when the Texas heat swings. I never thought about using a pet supply hack like that for brewing. Anyone else found weird household items that work great for fermentation?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_logan19d ago

Started noticing this pattern everywhere actually. People repurposing pet supplies for all sorts of random stuff. Friend of mine uses a cheap aquarium heater to keep his sourdough starter warm in the winter. Another guy I know uses those self-warming pet beds to proof bread dough overnight. Seems like anything made for creatures that need constant warmth works just as good for fermentation. Never thought about the reptile pad trick though. That's clever.

seanlewis18d ago

My buddy Mike tried using a heated cat bed to keep his kimchi fermenting at the perfect temp last February. It worked pretty well for about a week until his actual cat discovered it was warm and claimed it back, knocking the whole crock over in the process. So yeah, the repurposing is clever but you gotta make sure the original user doesn't have dibs on the equipment first.