In Morgan's video, which has been viewed over 9 million times, she shares, "This is your friendly reminder that if you have kombucha in your refrigerator and it has been 'kind of a long time,' don't touch it. Get some oven mitts and — I don't know — maybe some protective eye goggles. It will blow up."
BuzzFeed spoke to Morgan (who thankfully is okay!) to get more information about the unfortunate situation. She shared that the kombucha had been in her fridge, unopened, for about two and a half to three months. "It was just a normal, store-bought kombucha that I've had a few times before," she said.
In addition, Morgan said she noticed in the comments of her video that this unfortunate phenomenon has happened to a lot of other people before, so we decided to go straight to a highly qualified kombucha expert: Sarah Bond.
Sarah — who is the author of the Brew Buch website — has been home-brewing kombucha for over a decade. In addition, she is a vegetarian food blogger on Live Eat Learn.
To understand what happened to Morgan, it is important to know that kombucha is essentially a controlled growth of good bacteria and yeast. Sarah said, "We feed it tea and sugar so that it will produce that uniquely tart flavor...along with carbonation!"
In the case of Morgan's unfortunate kombucha explosion, Sarah explained that the good bacteria and yeast were working hard inside the bottle creating carbonation, but since she hadn't opened it, the carbonation had nowhere to go. "This means the pressure was building and building until the big moment. This is actually very common and is one of the most common questions I get about brewing kombucha — how to stop the explosions! People send me pictures all the time of their home-brewed kombucha splatter all over their ceilings and walls."
So now that we know this, how can we ensure that our own kombucha — whether store-bought or homemade — won't explode?! Sarah said that if you're going to have a bottle in your fridge for many months, it is important to open it several times to let out the excess pressure that has built up from the fermentation.
Luckily, kombucha stays good for a very long time, thanks to its high acidity. "It's always important to use your best judgment when consuming any sort of home fermentation. Sometimes mold can occur in kombucha, so you should always be vigilant about keeping an eye out for signs of it, and don't drink it if it has any odd smells or tastes. With that said, I've only had one batch of kombucha ever get moldy, and it's because I didn't feed it tea or sugar for months!"
