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Ohio

How do you know when your compost tea is ready? I put half compost in a large cooler and filled it the rest of the way up with water and added 4 oz molasses. Its started bubbling with in the first 3 hours but now there is no bubbles even after stirring or adding a little more molassess today I have stirred the compost 3 times a day, tomorrow will be the third day. This compost Im using is well broken down and is almost blackish color. Is this compost ready to apply or does there have to be bubbles in it when its time to apply to plants. should I use compost that isnt broken down all the way or is the stuff Im using ok?
Thanks,
Brooks

6/30/2006 8:24:41 PM

Www.extremepumpkinstore.com

Brooks,
You need constant source of air, like a fish tank bubbler or such.

6/30/2006 9:45:32 PM

Pennsylvania

If it stinks do not use it. It is the air bubbles that extract the beneficial bacteria from the compost. Your feeding them the Molasses but there still tied up in the compost without oxygen. Good tea will smell earthy. Jon

6/30/2006 10:08:51 PM

Ohio

Im using 2 fish tank bubblers, My compost smelled earthy before I started adding water and mollasses, maybe my compost is to done maybe? Or do you think another bubbler might work, the two bubblers I have is for 20 gallon fish tanks, they both have two lines running out of the units,so that gives me a otal of 4 air lines (bubblers) working. Maybe I dont have enough compost, or hell I just start over,lol

6/30/2006 11:19:10 PM

valparaiso, in

i use two 20 gallon fish tank pumps that have two lines each. i hook up a 3-way gang valve to each line, and put 3 bubblers on each valve. after three days my tea is usually ready. i go by on the smell, and the height of the foam coming from the tea.

7/1/2006 3:00:58 AM

Ohio

Thanks, everyone, Ill get me a couple three ways and see what happens.


Brooks

7/1/2006 5:02:07 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Brooks,

By "half compost in a large cooler" are you saying the cooler is half filled with compost???

That is WAY TOO MUCH COMPOST!!!

Im no CT Expert but I work with a lot of people who claim to be. Here is the reciped of a guy who runs a 600 gallon brewer:

8 liters Vermicompost
4 liters Poultry / Straw compost
4 cups bone meal
4 cups kelp
6 cups molasses

My big boat cooler holds 128 quarts or 32 gallons.

I just checked the Soil Soup 25 gallon model. Their recommended "recipe" calls for only 4 cups of Vermicompost.

http://www.soilsoup.com/productServices/25Instructions.asp

One cup = 8 oz by volume.
One liter = about 4.2 cups.

If my calculations are correct, the approximate ratio of compost to water should be about 6 gallons of water for every cup of compost.

So rather than filling the cooler half full (512 cups = 30 gallons) you should be using only 5 cups of compost.

7/1/2006 9:17:06 AM

Montoursville, PA

There is no relationship what so ever between vermicompost and teas being made from raw manure raw plant material or combinations of both cured and half done compost. Those with questions on manure teas should refer, to Craig's Symbrew making.

Then one must determine if one will use anaerobic tea or strive, to use aerobic tea. Symbrew is a tea that works into the aerobic zone but returns to anaerobic. Rumen is anaerobic at the begining, of the curing or making process inside the cow or horse

Brooks appears to be making compost tea from nearly finished mixed material compost. It that is a correct assessment the booster (molasses) did not have much biology to fire up and bubble.

Brooks....water it down, to look like tea you would drink and I think you are good, for the go, right now. Symbrew is an entirely different tea. Twice a week with light teas is the best advise Craig has reinforced, for all, of us.

7/2/2006 6:12:17 PM

Pennsylvania

For finished compost or even Vermicompost I figure about 3/4cup per gallon of water.
Use the fish tank air pump [with the stone filter].

Recent research has proven that the {aerobic} microherd populations fight diseases and bad soil and plant pathogens better and supply more power to your soil's total health and texture.

Very harmful plant pathogens that may affect the plant are excluded by the high concentration levels of oxygen that the tea medium is held in over the first 24 hours of the brewing process.
It is all about the Oxygen. Jon

7/3/2006 3:48:07 AM

Montoursville, PA

Before it gets to ugly here we need to correct some terms....some that may even be being used, by the authorities.

There is no such thing as Vermicompost. Tea made from worm casts is Worm Cast Tea. Worms make casts. From the casts we make or extract valued tea. Tricky here now but worms make casts which may be an element in compost but not the compost the actual compost. If tea were made from unfinished compost it should be refered to the basic materials, plant life, manures or combinations of materials in the unfinished compost.

Tea made from any other base uses the word compost only if the compost is truly finished. Untill it is fully finished is is cow manure tea or any other manure tea or combinations called tea. One could have named weed teas but not named weed compost, in this instance. Anything that was once living will become compost when properly handled. In any event the compost tea made, in any finnished form can only yeild, in tea form that which was, in the compost, in the first place.

Since formula mixes varry we make it tea color from any degree, of darkness, by adding water, untill it looks like tea you might drink, in color. Applied as tea, light colored tea, there is little fear of damage to the plants. Put on full colored dark tea would quite possibly if not certainly be using it, to strong. The user has to determine the color that should be used. You are never wrong going, on the light side and more often.

7/3/2006 12:13:21 PM

Pennsylvania

Docgipe, You seem agrumentive about everything...

I enjoy a lengthy indepth discussion but I will not engage you in an argument to prove a point.

7/8/2006 7:51:23 AM

Montoursville, PA

I have on occasion been dead wrong about something. When corrected I respond with a gentleman's thank you and unless pulling a slip up never state the original error again.

I realize that my methods are often little known to some who rarely seek resources agreeing largely with what I have to say. It is for them I try, to show alternative methods that are time proven healthy patch methods which are proven to be sustainable.

Others do not always use the "S" word because they can not while continuing practices that do not build the soils they hope, to grow winners and record crops in.

There are about ten percent, of the readership here that like what I have, to say. We get into debates from time to time but never an arguement.

If anyone feels that they can not challenge or debate differences with anyone here or any place else it is they who have the problem not I.

If the intellegence collectively, on this board were sorted out and applyed one heck, of a book could be written. That book would have two parts. Practices that are sustainable and practices that can not be sustained.

Both camps would have to fess up that mistakes have been made by all...however, to continue one's education is not really just arguementive it is practicing the sustainable methods. Pointing to papers and words of others without visable practices proves nothing.

7/8/2006 6:58:11 PM