This is b news with Ian Griffin, a
podcast all about Kombucha sure.
So I'm here sitting down in the town
of Emery in the Bay area, with Michael
Churchill who's heading up the
combo,
Kombucha Brewing
piece of piece of equipment.
Michael, what what have you got here?
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for having me in.
So we have a
hardware device that makes Kombucha at home.
So the idea was to
kinda take the Diy
Kombucha brewing,
and make it simple and easy for anyone
to brew at home.
Right. And I'm a home brewer. I've probably
brew the same way
most people use either a gallon, 2 gallon
glass jar. I got ceramic containers. But this
as people will see if they go to
the website, beach news dot com, and look
for the
posting that companies there there'll be some pictures
from your site. And this is very high
tech looking kind of burn aluminum
why don't you describe, you know, how did
this come about? First of all? What what
was your vision? Because you. You brew kombucha.
Right? I do. Yeah. So I've been brewing
Ka kombucha since...
Well, enjoying Cam kombucha since about, you know,
20 15 or so.
I started brewing in 20 17. Mh You
know, I just felt like I could try
it myself. I didn't wanna keep going to
the store and buying it over and over.
It really felt like,
sort of a treat, you know, when you
go back Kombucha. So
you know, watch some videos online, learn how
to brew it, you know, it turns out
it's not really that difficult to B Kombucha.
You know, most people
can kinda figure it out.
But over time, I started to realize that
there was, like, these nuances that, you know,
you you sort of had to dial in
to make good kombucha. Right. Right.
And that's what we decided to do a
combo was to kinda take out those
problems,
and also the package in a really beautiful
efficient compact on way.
You know, most home setups. I don't know
if you have, a similar setup where you
just have jar, and you've got a piece
of fabric over it. And in the winter,
it gets cold. So what do you do?
You get, you know, heating pad, you wrap
it around it and kinda bottles next to.
Yeah. My wife make sure I keep it
in the garage. She doesn't want that messing
up a kitchen whereas this looks very much...
I mean, I'd put it in the same
league as very nicely designed high end, clients
as coffee makers or other things you find
in in a sleek modern kitchen.
Well,
I... We I was talking in a minute
about the release schedule, but what's the what's
the secret? What's the technology?
How does it work?
Sure. Yeah. So we could talk about how
it works. You know, it's not
crazy advanced
alien technology.
It's mostly, you know, with Kombucha, you wanna
get the heating right and you wanna get
the timing right. Those are the 2
main points you wanna figure out. And that's
what we've done with this is you get
the heating to a nice gold lock zone,
you know, about 75 degrees Celsius, 78 degrees
Celsius somewhere in there. Fahrenheit night. Sorry fahrenheit.
Sorry. About 26 Celsius. Yeah. Fahrenheit. Good Yeah.
And so when you get it into that
range,
you've kinda got it set, and that's what
you want.
And then the timing is the other aspect.
So this has a built in time on
the top, you know, very simple analog buttons
you can set it for, you know, a
week up to 7 days.
And then we also have a digital app,
which you can access on your phone.
So all the people I wanna connect and
use an app, that'll be available.
But, yeah, That was the idea was to
kinda make sure that you get the timing
and temperature right,
let's talk about the heating. So it has
heating pads on each side. Mh. And
each side is controlled independently, so they work
off separate timers and separate heating in once
the heating is, you know, it runs for
a week,
and that finishes, it'll auto shut off and
go into standby mode.
And if you have the app alert you,
let you know, hey, which is ready. So
you can then take a sip, check it
out. See what's going on, and then, you
know, move on to the the next phase?
And what's the capacity? Is it a couple
of gallons?
Yes. So it's just under a gallon. It's
about 3 and a half liters on the
jar side, and then the bottle side is
07:50 milliliter per bottle.
So
when people get the,
equipment from you, are, you also gonna provide
Sc start liquid or the guidance as to
the ratio of the starter liquid to the
t. How how does that work? Yeah. So
the easiest way to get Ob to just
buy a bottle of plain kombucha from the
store, and that's a great way to kinda
get going. Yeah. And then in terms of
the volume for the jar,
you've got your 3 and a half liters
there. And then when you fill up the
bottles on the backside,
the liquid will stop pouring when there's 20
percent liquid left.
So it keeps that, you know, starter liquid
for continuous brewing. Because the 4 is that
high up and the yeah. Exact plate at
the rate high. So it's a no brainer
to
d your 4 bottles and then
add in, you start adding Ut tea, and
you're a good to go. A second. Exactly.
Continuously.
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about the 2
sides. I'm looking at it. It's kind of
sealed up here, but it it looks like
it's got almost like coffee maker it's where
you put in the liquid, and then it's
got another compartment. So Yeah. What happens to
be? I see. I see there's bottle in
that. Yeah. So the front side is the
jar. Supposed to be a boris look at
glass jar.
Obviously, it's open top. So on the lid,
you have a... What we call filter disc.
And that allows us for that air airflow
circuit. Oh, like like fabric would. Yeah. People
use like a Rips rooftop fabric.
So it is very durable, but it's also,
you know,
not gonna, like,
get any kind of mold or any kind
of issues with it it's very durable fabric.
But we've actually updated the design, so it
actually looked like this. So a little bit
more of a structure. The fabric would also
have the rips rooftop nylon on with that.
So... Yeah. So that's the jar side. And
then on the bottle side, you've got, you
know, your standard Pet plastic bottle, very much
like
C02.
Mh. Dispensing machine you would have at home.
That type of bottle. So it's sort of
a thicker Pet bottle that can withstand that
carbon coordination. Mh. So you make your kombucha
in the jar side the 3 quarters of
v liter or whatever you said. It dispense
it into the bottles.
Yeah. And then is this for, like, secondary
fermentation? Exactly. And the... This would need to
be cool. Right? Is this heart and this
cold or yeah. How's temperature? Just both heated.
So when your jar site kombucha ferment commence
for about a week. Once it's ready, you
check it for that balance of that sour
and that sort of sweet balance. Mh. Once
that's ready, you then fill up bottles
with the Kombucha add your flavoring. So usually
about 80 twenties. So you wanna about 20
percent juice juice proof flavoring or whatnot, seal
up the bottles, Put that in the bottle
side for about 3 to 5 days. And
then once that's done ferment, you can check
actually squeeze the side of the bottle to
see the pressure. Right? Once that's ready, toss
them in the fridge, let it cool down
for anywhere from, you know, 6 hours to
24 hours.
And then, yes, start over, do a new
fresh batch. On the jar side, fill in
some sweet tea, and then you're good to
go. Okay. So what we're looking at is
it's plugs in presumably electrical
heating,
Container for a just under say a gallon
of Kombucha,
dispense into those bottles, secondary fermentation flavoring,
and
very compact. It would look nice on any
modern kitchen. Now let's talk about, yeah, you
know, I first heard about this or a
year ago. You guys
refining it, but
it sounds like you're getting close to when
can people actually go ahead and order this
and then presume they order it
online, so tell us about your website and
everything else. Yeah. Yeah. So we... We've been
working on this project.
You know, they say hardware is hard.
But we're working with some manufacturers in China,
and we're we're basically ready to go into
production. So we're gonna launch with the Kickstarter
crowdfunding funding campaign to raise the funds for,
you know, the mold and tooling in the
first runs.
So our Kickstarter will launch on July t,
It'll run through August. So it'll run for
a month.
And people can, you know, support us back
us there, and then we will go into
production at the end of the year and
start shipping in,
Q1Q2.
Yeah. And do you have a, a suggested
retail price? Any ideas there on what people
will be
willing to pay for this? Or you think
it'll you think it's worth?
So it's around 505
50 for Msrp p. And then with the
kickstarter, you'll see about a 30 percent discount
Oh, so if people donate to the kick
kickstarter, they get a discount.
Yeah. For early backers,
yeah. You'll have up to 30 percent discount.
Out. Okay. It's pretty pretty good.
Do you think there's a market? They have
500 dollars? Sure. So 1 of the things
with Combo is we're not some, you know,
cheap
quick little thing. We use high quality materials.
We, you know, prioritize,
like, high design. With his products.
And we realized that even at the 500
dollar Msrp price, it is a little bit
of a stick shock to some people,
if you were to do the math and
we have, you know, if you're buying a
Kombucha day. This thing pays for itself in,
like, 3 months. So totally, I mean, I
began drinking Kombucha,
buying as many people did Gts ginger aid.
I was getting... I immediately
responded, you know, 15 years ago. I was
buying a case a week. Which meant I
was spending a hundred and 20 bucks a
month. And I started brewing my own for,
like, 10 cents a bottle. Yeah. So, yeah.
It it definitely unlike other
luxury items which you wouldn't get a return
from on a 500 dollar sweater or whatever.
You you you will show up Yeah.
Cash flow positive
for the Kombucha. And I guess what you're
really selling then is that guaranteed sort of
high end convenience
taking the guess work with the
the app Yeah. And the dialed in temperature
is is that... And
okay. So really, it's gonna be 20 25
it'll be available. So what is your website
if people wanna go see any
put it in the blog post, but for
people just listening to the audio,
how do they find you? Sure. You that
can go to the combo dot com,
and all our socials are at the combo
K0MBU?
The combo? The combo. Yeah. Alright. So what's
your background that led you to create something
as elegance as this?
Yeah. So me and my wife for both
designers and industrial designers and automotive designers that's
our trade. And mh, you know, during the
pandemic, we just started trying to come up
with ideas to build our own products. Mh.
And
we came up with this. And the initial
design was actually fairly different.
And it went through a bunch of different
iterations.
But, you know, that's our that's our forte
design and industrial design. And so we were
able to, like, sketch and design it and
build it and then sort of throw it
over the wall over to China and say,
hey, is this something that we can build?
What's the feasibility like?
You know, do all the market research and
start to figure out, okay. If we were
to sell a product like this. What does
that look like? Mh.
Well, that's great. To have heard about this.
Good luck and
I'll definitely,
keep track of it and see how see
how the sales go into 20 25. Thanks.
Thanks so much.
Thanks for listening to News.
For more about Kombucha. Please visit news dot
com.