WEEK 4
Kombucha leather

The students can work in group, identifying tasks and splitting them, as long as they all proof they are able to carry out each task. They can choose to:

Produce at least one natural dye, modifying it’s colour and mordanting it in different ways to dye at least 2 different categories of fibers.

Explore dyeing with bacteria of different fibers and bacteria

Class 4
  • SoftwareSublime, Adobe Ilustrator, rinhoceros
  • MachinesLaser Trotec speedy 400 flex
  • MaterialsAlum, copper, iron, natural dyes
  • Download files -
Biodyes Biomaterials
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How to make kombucha leather

How to make a Scoby from 0

When buying Kombucha in the supermarket we can see that particles are condensed in the bottom of the bottle. Aside, in a glass bowl you add black tea (a cup) and 5 tablespoons of sugar and insert the liquid from the Kombucha bottle from the supermarket. The tea must have been at room temperature.

Growing

In 4 days we can see a first transparent veil that appears in the container. From this moment the growth is faster, and in 4 days we can see that the colony of bacteria covered the entire container.

2 weeks after

In two weeks I got a thickness of 3 millimeters, and they begin to separate into different layers.
Scoby

This is Scoby obtained from the bottle of kombucha that I bought at the supermarket. This will be the mother to insert in larger containers.

Ingredients

We follow the recipe provided by the teachers, and duplicate it by 3 in quantity to be able to have the necessary proportion for the container. In this case we used like 1 ltr of black tea, 480 gr of white sugar.

Diferents teas

In order to compare results, we use two containers with two different types of tea in the same proportion. 1. Black tea and 2. Green tea.

Bio Dye

In the container of black tea we add a natural dye, in this case tumeric to obtain an intense yellow color in the final result

Tumeric tea

To add the tumeric to the kombucha it is better to dilute it with hot water to infuse it and mix it better with the black tea of the container. Water is part of the established measure of liters but with the dye.

Add the scoby

Once both types of tea cooled to room temperature, we added the scoby to the containers, with clean hands trying to stay on the surface.

Cover with a cloth

Finally the container must be covered with a cloth, so that it is not contaminated with dirt and insects, but that it can obtain oxygen for its growth. We decided to use black cloth, so that it did not have much ambient light.

After 11 days

12 - oct to 23 oct

The growth has been surprisingly fast, in just 11 days we obtained a 4 mm thick scoby on the entire surface. The appearance of the scoby is quite healthy and homogeneous.
4mm thick

Detail of scoby thickness

Removing it from the tea

With clean hands we removed the scoby of the tea from kombucha and we could in another container to wash it with water and remove small impurities from the future leather.

Let dry

The scoby is left to dry on a porous surface, in this case wood to facilitate drying, absorbing the wood scooby liquids.

6 days after

In 6 days we can see the final result. The leather is a thick 1 millimeter with enough transparency. The natural dye has been satisfactory, and the color obtained has been the expected intense yellow.

Kombucha leather

Detail of the result. Kombucha leather

Fail (green tea)

The container with the green tea, has not worked like green tea, the result was a transparent layer that never came to be solid and increased in size. We believe that part of the failure was because part of the green tea we added was decaffeinated, and it was not enough to generate the transformation.

Fail (black tea + hibiscus)

Another test was a third contryor with the recipe of black tea with 10gr of hibiscus tea as a natural dye.

Bad aspect

The komucha I expect to smell too much vinegar and bubbles of gas appeared by the fermentation that generated an irregular appearance on the surface.

Texture roll

To try to modify the bad aspect of the surface, I used a roll with texture, printed in 3d with PLA. The results have been positive.

Results

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