It worked! First time making SCOBY from store bought kombucha.
I used GT Synergy kombucha. I couldn't find the plain one so I used one with raspberry juice, lemon juice and ginger juice. Made the sweetened tea from a recipe I found online, let it cool, and dumped the bottom half of the store bought kombucha into the jar with the tea. I wrapped the top with two layers of paper towels, put the jar in a dark cupboard and waited about two months. I was hesitant after a few weeks and almost threw it out, thinking it didn't work, but I just kept waiting until I saw this thick pellicle! Just made my F1 batch today. I don't think I'll do F2 because I don't have the bottles and would prefer less sugar anyway. I have a Soda Stream and can just add soda water at the end if I want carbonation.
After I moved the SCOBY into the fresh tea, I still had a lot of fresh tea left and didn't know what to do with the leftover starter liquid. ChatGPT said I could start another pellicle if I dump the tea into the starter liquid, so I did that. We'll see what happens in a few weeks!
I think the hardest part was making sure everything was sterile. I washed my hands so many times and used so many paper towels! It was a fun experiment though.