Kombucha and Kefir troubleshooting

[Mysterie]

I am a beginner when it comes to making kombucha and kefir

and was hoping someone here as a bit more experience than I do on these matters

the problem with my kombucha is its day 10 and its been sitting on the bottom of the jar since day 3
and I cant see any evidence of it forming its baby scoby, all I see is more threads sitting around it
when it came in the mail there wasn't much starter tea (maybe 50ml or so) which is why im becoming paranoid about the whole process fucking up

the problem with my kefir, is it came in the mail looking halfway between white sludge and porridge
so when ive finished the 24 hours cycle i strain it into my sieve and the left over bit looks more like porridge (even after i use a wooden spoon to move it around a bit in order to reduce more liquid from the solid kefir grains) as opposed to the cauliflower looking kefir grains i see online
although after 24 hours my kefir solution looks pretty normal (thick, sludgy and a bit of clearish separation occurring halfway up jar)

so am I doing something wrong or being overly paranoid

also dont tell me to google it because i dont have 10 hours to wade through random kombucha/kefir forums

 

[rm-rf]

hrm, both sound bad. the kefir def sounds dead or something. mine has always been the small, dime-sized "cauliflower" shaped grains. im not the biggest fan of fruit juice kefir so I havent made any in a year, but for a long time I had a new batch ready every three days, and only after severe neglect (vacation or something) would the grains go bad and turn into a pile of white goo. yours might be dead on arrival.

as for komboucha, ive only gotten a fresh scoby from someone in the community who had one. ive had my same 'ancestry' of scobys going for about 2 years now, in fact just this morning mine split into two and i started the new batch (giving old one to a friend later). id say yours doesnt sound like its doing good - sitting on bottom after 10 days isnt something ive observed myself, but id say it might be worth it to try and get another. i just poured the tea into my glass jar, and the scoby is sitting on the bottom, but it will probably float to the top by late afternoon.

10 days isnt always the exact measure. i always have to do mine longer. it depends on how it tastes when youre done. in my experience, if its really sweet, it isnt done, scoby needs to eat more. if its really tangy, its way done, so i try to let it keep going until its a mildy sweet but certainly tangy taste. 10 days always tastes very sweet to me, 15 is where the tangy taste comes into play. sometimes it takes about 20 days, as this last batch did. i always use less sugar than recommended for the amount of tea/water im using.

what kind of water did you use for the tea? if you used filtered tap water, what is your municipal water like?

 

[Mysterie]

my memory is very much like a sieve, so i have no idea if i used filtered tap or tap.
adelaide water is renowned for being one of the least-palatable in the australian region

i would have thought bringing it to a boil would have made it at least made it innocuous.

regarding dead kefir, after the 24 hours process, the whole solution becomes a lot more thick and tastes like watery yoghurt basically.

which seems to fit the description of normal grain kefir, should i just continue using it or try find a replacement, i had a thought that maybe my kefir grains are just broken up (from stirring before straining maybe?) hence why they look less well formed

 

[Mysterie]

this is a photo of how it looks after rinsing

as you can see its not really 1 solid piece, more like sticky rice or porridge

 

[eezeekial]

I havent messed with dairy kefir before but I know with water kefir you do not want to use a metal strainer, it harms the grains. The same might be so for your grains.

 

[Mysterie]

i read that if its stainless steel then its a pretty negligable amount of harm

but most people still use plastic strainers 'just to be safe'

i think mine may have just overheated during its transit in the parcel