Hi
I saw your post was curious, I have been thinking about mass producing and was wondering about the specifics.
Steve

Four dollars a bottle eh? Here it is right at five with tax.

Long gone are the days when a GT was $2.50 in Arkansas. (sigh)

Hmmmm the only large (5 gallon+) glass jars i could find has a small opening.

I wonder if it would be economical to pick up some of those (called carboys) and take them to a glass cutter to chop the top off?

heh.. GT's is between $3 and $4 here in and around the Boston area..

anyway.. the folks making Katalyst Kombucha ( www.katalystkombucha.com/ ) use big 2.5 gallon glass jars, which I understand they sell.. but I believe it's a local thing.. like you'd have to go pick it up (they do sell a kit though for $50).

so somewhere out there in the ether, there are large glass jars available..

I think the production is only one hurdle. Distribution and marketing must be pretty crazy expensive. There are several commercial kombuchas out there but GTs is one of the few that is readily available. Kombucha Wonder Drink was the first one I tried and my favorite but it's still hard to get that. I guess the beauty of the kombucha is anyone can make it! I know that was the understatement of the year but my guess is mass production of kombucha is much more difficult than just the production part.

having said that, you can get 5-gallon glass carboys like the ones in beer making kits
www.wineandhop.com/CatalogB...its.shtml
www.wineandcake.com/browse.c...,760.html
www.amazon.com/Gallon-Gla.../B000E60GYK

Stainless steel works great as a first fermenter. you can get giant brew kettles with an industrial spichot. The problem with really large batches is that if something goes wrong you have a really large batch of bad stuff. brew in 2-4 gallon containers and its a lot easier to maintain, move, and cook etc....

also you have to be able to get the babies out so a carboy will not work.
brew kettles:
www.northernbrewer.com/kettles.html
large glass containers:
www.infused-vodka.com/

I use to work for Whole Foods Market in nutrition for a number of years. I have also been brewing Kombucha for a while. When I first started out I had a lot of questions. Also some of the customers came in asking me some questions I did not know how to answer at the time. So I called up GT and left a message. He him self called me back the next day and answered most of my questions. Very nice guy! I met him back in 2001 in SF where he was demoing his product at a health food store I worked at.

anyhow...

He said the reason his batches take 30 days is because of the size. He brews in huge vats. Not sure what they are made of? Just know that they are big and because of this it takes longer. He dose use a culture. None of that powder stuff some mentioned above.

Kombucha 2000 brand brews in gallon size glass jugs! Can you even imagine brewing hundreds of these to bottle up!? I spoke to the owner at a trade show some years ago. He said that he had found that the taste and quality comes out better using the smaller size brewing containers.

I was pretty serous about starting a kombucha business a few years ago. The market in LA, CA. was and is very saturated. And after doing the math, I decided the over head would not be worth the risk. But in a place where the market is not so huge, I am sure it would not be much of a risk.

happyherbalist.com sells 2 gal and i think 5 gal. ceramic containers with spigots. Great company. I got my 1st cultures from them. Based in Santa Cruz.

It would be a good idea to start selling at Farmers markets to see what the market is like. Get the word out on the streets about your product. You could see if some healthy smoothy bars or healthy organic restaurants would be interested in buying your product. It will be much easier to get your product into a co-op vs a big retailer like Whole Foods or Wild Oats.

Just some ideas off the top of my head for you guys. Your post was in 2006, so I hope this helps.