I had the same happen to me with a few of my bottles. I would say that based on how much carbonation the bottles are leaking, it might not be a lost cause! I have had a few bottles that did leak too much, and the final kombucha was not carbonated at all and even had a bit of an odd taste to it, but that might not be relevant. On the other hand, I had a few bottles that leaked as well, but, they still carbonated pretty well, some even very well.
Test it out! See what happens with them, a slight leak is not the most ideal maybe, but it can still carbonate, so don't give it up!
Rose flowers! It's probably the most loved of all the flavors i make here at home. It doesn't really take that many to add a lot of flavor also.
I'm not sure what is common, but with my hibiscus brew I tend to just add what ever is read, so I would add roses, red berries, and anything else that randomly comes my way that is red and I can save until my F2.
I believe that any time you pour a carbonated beverage between containers, you lose some of the carbonation because CO2 escapes. Pouring a carbonated beverage through a regular sieve causes CO2 to escape even more, and pouring it through a mesh sieve (at least it looks like a mesh sieve in the picture) will cause even more loss of carbonation.
So I would say yes, you are losing carbonation by using that sieve. If it's to filter out the fruits and what ever is in the kombucha, I would just do my best to have larger chunks that would fit through a regular wide holed sieve.
Yes you definitely can, I have done this with fruit flavored F2 that I thought was done, but upon opening I learned that it wasn't. Since it was still pretty sweet I didn't add any more sugar, I just left it out for about another 2 days, and then opened it and it was more carbonated than it was the first time.
I would think that if you didn't add more sugar and there wasn't that much sugar in it anymore like there was in my case, then it would become more acidic. But as long as there is either already sugar still in it, or you add more sugar, I don't think it will become more acidic than if you would have just left it out without putting it in the fridge in between.
I recently read that it doesn't even matter if you flip the bottles upside down and the air pocket at the bottom of the bottles instead of the top. At least for carbonation leaking, since CO2 apparently is smaller than water particles, it can still leak even if flipped upside down. So, since that can happen, I feel like it might not make much difference if the bottles are upside down, right side up, on their sides, or slanted.
Disclaimer:
It was a quick read and this very well might not be the right answer to this question!
Do you have anyone else who can taste them? I think that would be your safest bet. Can you compare the kombucha to store bought kombucha? Maybe having some and tasting both one after another can give you a sort of base line on where the flavors should be. It's probably best to buy unflavored kombucha for this as you are unsure about your first fermentation, but don't try and compare it too closely since store bought kombucha almost always tastes different from our homemade kombucha, but use it as a way to differentiate flavors better.
