Diary (January 11, 2018)

Online diary of Karl Jones for January 11, 2018.

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Diary

SCOBY leather

I have experimented with SCOBY “leather”, and while it is fascinating to make and interesting to play with, I guarantee you do not want this shit in contact with your skin, because it (the SCOBY leather, not your skin) is slightly sticky, slightly slimy, and smells like cat pee.

Also, it’s tough while “dry” (although it’s always slightly moist), but in the presence of water – or sweat – it gets very slimy, and tends to slowly decompose/degrade/dissolve.

You want SCOBY boots on your feet, like portable trenchfoot? No, I thought not.

• Comment @ Boing Boing

Speaking of impairments to food-grade SCOBY production, the SCOBY pellicle is a wonderful breeding ground for fruit flies (or whatever those little flies are). Just leave the cheesecloth off your SCOBY jar, and soon enough the flies will appear.

I raised many generation of flies (in the interest of science). With careful observation, you can see several phases of the flies’ life cycle: egg hatching, worm growing, fly emerging.

No, I did not drink the SCOBY fluid from these experiments.

Update: I also experimented with drying and reviving SCOBYs. They are highly conservative of moisture: fluid beneath a SCOBY pellicle will take months to dry up, even in a uncovered wide-mouth bowl in a dry environment. The pellicle slowly shrinks, becoming protectively hard on the outside; the inside retains precious moisture and remains viable for a surprisingly long time.

• Comment @ Boing Boing

[it (the SCOBY…) is slightly sticky, slightly slimy, and smells like cat pee.]

Reply comment from user ClutchLinkey:

Came here to say just this! A couple years ago I dehydrated some SCOBY after hearing the dried stuff made a good chew toy for pets. Pets did not care for it, and the dehydrator (and the kitchen) smelled like vinegary cat pee for a while after. Imagine the smell of a closet full of these clothes!

• Comment @ Boing Boing

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Karl Jones (nonfiction)