Kombucha is fairly controversial. There isn’t a ton of analysis on its well being advantages, folks appear to both love or detest its distinct style, and it might…doubtlessly blow up in your face?
Yep, that’s an actual chance based on a viral TikTok video posted Saturday. Within the clip, a person named Morgan Bailey detailed how a bottle of kombucha, which she left in her fridge for round three months, immediately exploded and reduce her hand. “This can be a pleasant reminder that you probably have kombucha in your fridge and it’s been type of a very long time, don’t contact it,” she stated within the video. “Get some oven mitts and perhaps some protecting eye goggles. It’ll blow up.”
The clip blew up, too (with greater than 450,000 likes and counting), prompting Bailey to elucidate precisely what occurred in a follow-up video. All she did, apparently, was contact the sealed, store-bought bottle, and growth: “I suppose simply the strain of my hand shifting it a little bit bit made it flip right into a literal bomb,” she stated. “Like there was glass in every single place—throughout my kitchen, the partitions, the ceiling.” This freaky incident left her with a deep reduce between her fingers that required stitches, based on Bailey.
The feedback part was stuffed with horror and concern, elevating questions like: Do you have to name in a bomb squad to throw out your leftover kombucha? And the way widespread is that this, actually? We had been curious, too, so we reached out to a meals science professional to clear issues up.
When you didn’t already know from its effervescence and bitter style, kombucha tea is fermented—which means it undergoes a course of during which microorganisms (on this case, micro organism and yeast) convert sugar into small quantities of alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide, Katherine Thompson-Witrick, PhD, an assistant professor of meals science on the College of Florida specializing in fermentation, tells SELF.
But when there’s nonetheless a whole lot of leftover sugar after the primary fermentation, over time, that course of can proceed to occur (what’s known as “refermentation”). Mainly, which means there may very well be an overflow of carbon dioxide fuel, and all that strain build up might trigger a bottle to rupture, Dr. Thompson-Witrick says. That’s one purpose why it’s best to ideally toss your kombucha after just a few months of buy (if it doesn’t have an expiration date, analysis reveals that 4 months is normally an excellent rule of thumb).
Now, how probably is it that your funky, fizzy drink will spontaneously combust in your fridge (or face)? A kombucha “bomb,” as Bailey put it, is “extraordinarily uncommon,” Dr. Thompson-Witrick says, including that it’s extra prone to occur if the beverage is home made (because it’s much less prone to be fermented correctly). Or, maybe what might clarify Bailey’s explosion is “a weak spot within the bundle itself,” like a defective seal or weak bottle construction, Dr. Thompson-Witrick says.
Nonetheless, we don’t blame you if that viral TikTok—and seeing Bailey’s bandaged hand—freaked you out. When you’d fairly be protected than sorry, together with heeding expiration dates, Dr. Thompson-Witrick additionally suggests “burping” your kombucha by opening the bottle each different day (just a bit—not all the way in which) to launch some strain. “With regards to opening any carbonated product, it’s additionally finest to level the bottle away out of your face,” she says, for apparent causes.
The underside line: No, you most likely don’t have to fret about your store-bought kombucha making a harmful mess in your kitchen—or sending you to the emergency room—so long as it’s correctly packaged and refrigerated (since “fermentation slows down considerably at and under refrigeration temperatures,” Dr. Thompson-Witrick explains). But it surely doesn’t damage to unscrew the cap each few days. You already know, simply in case.
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