Boiled up the hemp twine crocheted mat (which when wet smells strongly of goat)…
…then used the t-shirt press to flatten it out…
…and suspended it at the surface of a fresh batch of kombucha.
We covered the whole business in a cloth, and put it into the brewing shelf. Not sure at all what might happen, but the hope is that the bacteria and yeast will colonize the twine and produce cellulose all around, encasing the mat in SCOBY goodness.
Ran some laser tests on the kombucha leather. Specifically, we wanted to test raster and vector engraving, and vector cutting. We used the Natural -> Paper -> Construction Paper setting in the laser driver, and cooked up a test file using our mascot Nova.
The material wasn’t perfectly flat, so the raster engrave worked, but inconsistently. The vector engrave left a crisp line on the material, but it could be easily scratched away with a fingernail.
The vector cut worked well, the edges crisp and clean. The surface of the material is textured in an interesting way, and really resembles skin.
Tomorrow we’re going to try to start some kombucha in larger vessels – we’re going to need a lot of SCOBY!