Kombucha ferments too fast

...At least it seems too fast. A year ago when I first started my ferment, of about 2 quarts each time, took about 7 days, regardless of the temperature. Now it is reaching my preferred drinkable stage within 5 days. Have I created a monster? Or just an impatient culture?

or a stronger, healthier one?

Has your mother grown much thicker? As your mother grows thicker, she can digest the nutrients in your sweet tea faster. This is a good reason to peel away layers periodically.

Bingo! Yes, I allow the culture to become rather thick and peel it down only occasionally.

Jane Reed wrote:reaching my preferred drinkable stage ...

Am I concluding too fast (or not) about fermenting...
Would this be a common point with sprouting... ?

-> Is it necessary to have a lot of batches at regular state of edibility?
I can see only with sauerkraut that you can keep it for months and just help yourself into the pot (as long as you let it in a cool place and with juice covering veggies).

So how many different kombucha bottles do you keep at different stages?

Me, I only have one ferment going, as I don't drink much of the finished product each day.

In my fridge, I always have 1 - 3 bottles of second ferment, to which fruit has been added and allowed to sit on the kitchen counter for a couple of days. If I don't drink this up very quickly, I don't want to bottle more. Thus, the original ferment sometimes gets too strong as it ages and I will pour some of it off and add new sweet tea for it to feed on.

I'm not much for experimenting so the one ferment is all I have. However, that changed a few days ago. I do keep a spare culture and for the first time I peeled off a recent culture layer and put it in a bottle with mango flavored tea. I know that some people say never to do this as it will harm the culture and not give you the finished kombucha you are looking for. Others say they have been successful with using flavored teas in their starter. Since I have the spare I decided to try. This means I have my original, large batch of starter, my spare culture in a bit of tea in a smaller bottle, and, now, another small bottle with the experiment. At the moment there are no second ferments on my countertop. This could easily get out of hand. As I have a small kitchen, I really have no room for masses of kombucha containers.

I just made my first batch of kombucha. The SCOBY is getting super thick and I wanted to share some with a friend. Any suggestions on splitting the SCOBY before she's created her "baby"?

Whenever my ferment reaches the stage when I bottle some or all of it into other bottles (in which I have put some fruit, for the second ferment stage) I decide if the culture is too thick. If so, I simply peel of some of the lower layers and discard them. At this stage the culture intended for discard can be given away or saved as a spare. Often this is a messy job and the layers are sticking together such that they don't peel off completely or they tear or something. This does not have any untoward results in the action of the next batch in its first ferment. In my own mind I imagine it is harmful to tear it, but, in fact, it is not. I have had several occasions when I have torn the culture and it still continues to work as expected.

I don't bother the culture when it is in the middle of its work, but only when I take it out of the first-ferment container in order to transfer some of the tea to bottles for the second ferment.