Use your gallon jar to measure out a gallon of water and pour it into a pot. Bring the pot to a boil, and stir in the organic white sugar and 8 tea bags. Remove from heat.

Let the sweet tea cool completely. You want the tea to be room temperature so that when you touch it, it feels neither hot nor cold. Once it has cooled, remove the tea bags, and stir in the 1/2 cup of kombucha.

Pour the sweet tea into the gallon jar. Use a wooden or plastic spoon (or clean hands) to add your SCOBY to the jar.

Cover the jar with cheesecloth, a paper towel, or tightly woven cloth and a rubber band.

Let it sit in a warm place for 7-10 days. Don't put it in direct sunlight, but you also don't want to put it in a fridge or cool place, because it can interfere with fermentation. Keeping it around 75 degrees F (24 degrees C), give or take 10 degrees or so, should be ok.

Begin tasting your kombucha at 7 days. Continue to taste it every day, until it's your ideal sweetness and fizziness level. The longer it brews, the less sweet it will be, since the SCOBY feeds on the sugar.

Reserve 2 cups of the kombucha, and store your SCOBY in it until your next brew.

This preserves your SCOBY and gives you starter kombucha for your next batch. It's easiest to just continue to store the 2 cups and the SCOBY in the jar you brewed in.

Pour the rest of the kombucha into your glass bottles, leaving about an inch of space at the top of each bottle. Your bottles should have an airtight seal of some kind, like these swing top bottles, to keep carbonation from escaping.

Add additional ingredients for flavor if you'd like. Let it continue to ferment with the flavors you added for another 1-3 days in a warm place out of direct sunlight, and the carbonation will increase. Once the kombucha has reached your desired carbonation level, strain out the fruit if you want to, and store it in the fridge. Drink your kombucha within a month or so.