cooking your compost tea mix.

so with compost tea i see alot of people add guanos and what not to add nutrients to the tea. but if the microbes need to break down these nutrients to make it availible for plant to take up. wouldnt a compost tea work better if you mix up say 5 gallons of tea mix and let it cook so the guanos and other nutrients can break down?

i could be wrong about this. i guess my main question is once microbes break down guano does it become soluble?

no one has any input? bump

This is what mine looks like after it 'cooks' as you say.

Looks like normal water at first. After about 30-36 hours it gets the really big bubbles.

So you know what's in there:

De-chloramined tap water.
Earth Juice Grow: Oat bran, sea kelp, bat guano, steamed bone meal, natural potash, blood meal and feather meal.
Earth Juice Catalyst: Oat bran, sea kelp, wheat malt, molasses and yeast.
Earth Juice Hi-Brix: Molasses.
Earth Juice Microblast: Kelp meal, magnesium sulfate, borax, cobalt sulfate, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, sodium molybdate and zinc sulfate.
Earth Juice Mycorrhizae: Proprietary blend of 8 Mycorrhizal Fungi.
Earth Juice Bio Zeus: Proprietary Blend of 10 Natural Occurring Beneficial Soil Microbes.
Sphagnum peat moss.

That's all I feed. This is my first time, vegging some donors I got that were really stressed. They explode after they get this.

Keep in mind I'm a rookie at this, others probably know much more than I.

hth and good luck

it looks good. mine never get that frothy. but i normmaly do a 18-24 hour brew.

but by cooking it i mean mixing up your tea mix weeks in advance and than letting it cook in a bucket like sub cooks his super soil. to let the microbes that are there multiple and break down the nutrients you just added to the mix. in theory with the nutrients broken down it would be also more soluble and would be more availible in the tea for the plants.

with your tea you couldnt do ^^ since you use all bottles. never seen a tea made with all bottles. ita pretty interesting and that it will foam up that much.

Ah, I see where u are going.

FYI, my tap is 7.0, adding the EJ drops it instantly to 4.0. 24 hours later it's still at 4.0. Only after that does the PH slowly start to rise. That's when I start seeing the big bubbles / froth.

According to EJ "Can store closed and vented in a cool area out of direct sunlight for 2-3 days. Store "cold" up to 2 weeks."

Got a feeling any longer than that an the mycorrhizae run outta food and die off.

interesting. i have EJ catalyst that i like to put in with some molasses. did you get the recipe from EJ?

Interesting that the above recipe does not contain any actual compost...

I would for sure recommend making your own compost from food waste and grass clippings ect.
This you cook, turn, add supplements, guano, rock dust ect.

After a few months you will have rich dark alivened earth, or compost. And all the supplements you added will be in avalible forms.

Making teas from this will be significantly better than anything in a bottle, and is actually 'compost tea'.

Rising Moon said:

Interesting that the above recipe does not contain any actual compost...

I would for sure recommend making your own compost from food waste and grass clippings ect.
This you cook, turn, add supplements, guano, rock dust ect.

After a few months you will have rich dark alivened earth, or compost. And all the supplements you added will be in avalible forms.

Making teas from this will be significantly better than anything in a bottle, and is actually 'compost tea'.

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Agreed. the real microbe colonies that you're trying to breed are in the living compost. I've been messing with homemade EM solutions a little, and if you make EM then use it to keep your compost pile damp, it will really speed up decomposition. It will also add more microbes to the compost, making it that much better for your tea.

to make EM, take a handful of white rice and add it to 1-2c of r.o. water, shake and strain cloudy water into a container with a lid - put in the dark for 5 days.
then add this to about 1/2 gal of milk and set at room temp in the dark for 5 days. (poke a hole in the milk lid).
after five days, it will be watery on the bottom half, and curdled on the top half, gently strain curds out of solution and boom! homemade effective microorganisms! you can feed the curds to your pets
now add this solution to a little r.o. water and molasses to breed and stretch even further - use for compost pile, soil conditioner, making fpe's, bokashi bins

my understanding (from everything I've read) was not to add myco to my tea because 1. the bacterial colonies in the tea will out-compete the fungi since they eat the same food but bacteria grows faster, and 2. mycos need to be connected to the root to do their job. adding to supersoil or tea is a waste because they will die off without a root to form that symbiotic relationship, instead sprinkle over the roots or in planting hole every transplant.

I've never used EJ products but imo, in an aact, I would avoid the microblast and all its sulfates. kelp has the micros

1c compost, 1/2c worm castings, 1Tbsp molasses, and a dash of kelp meal, 48 hours - works wonders and saves you money TEAS ARE THE SHIT!!! good luck

dank smoker420 said:

interesting. i have EJ catalyst that i like to put in with some molasses. did you get the recipe from EJ?

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http://www.hydro-organics.com/home/index.php?categoryID=574

Scroll down to TP -Primary Plant Tea

To answer your question, no you would not ever wanna "cook" your brew! The microbes are alive and ready to use instantly and should be aerobic and have a good earthy smell!

trichmasta said:

To answer your question, no you would not ever wanna "cook" your brew! The microbes are alive and ready to use instantly and should be aerobic and have a good earthy smell!

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i dont want to cook the actual tea. im talking about the mix. since people use guanos and soil additives that take months to break down. what is the point of putting them in tea if it wont be availible for the plant, guano has water soluble nitrogen as most nutrients but its only a fraction of what is really in the ferts. which bring up the question is broken down nutrient water soluble so then after you cook your compost mix with the added nutrients you will know if it is soluble. if it is soluble than it should be available when you water with the tea.
If you think about it nutrients should be water soluble when broken down or else there is no way the plant could take it up. i dont know if this is true but it seems to make sense.
Since guanos and other added nutrients are not absorbed or soluble than it is wasting them putting them in tea. so i feel that "cooking" your compost tea mix would maximize your nutrient levels in the tea and you would be getting more use out of the nutrients you buy.

I would love to get some people who understand my thought or theory of compost teas and nutrients in them to also think about this i can get multiple thoughts about it and draw up a more accurate conclusion.

The point of the AACTs is to colonize a lot of microbes for your soil, not so much to breakdown the individual organic compound that you are brewing in your tea.

Don't worry about the nutrients being "broken-down" just worry about colonizing lots of bacteria and if you're really good at brewing teas.. fungi

my two cents

ottawaliquid said:

The point of the AACTs is to colonize a lot of microbes for your soil, not so much to breakdown the individual organic compound that you are brewing in your tea.

Don't worry about the nutrients being "broken-down" just worry about colonizing lots of bacteria and if you're really good at brewing teas.. fungi

my two cents

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so when putting guanos and other nutrients in tea it is to feed the microbes or to aquire bacteria from the guano? guano is a good fungicide so wouldnt it kill myco? it might just protect agains bad fungi. if you dont worry about nutrient break down why do alot of teas you see have nutrients that needs to be broken down to become availible? is it pointless to add or is there a point in adding guano and other nutrients that need to broken down.

dank smoker420 said:

so when putting guanos and other nutrients in tea it is to feed the microbes or to aquire bacteria from the guano? guano is a good fungicide so wouldnt it kill myco? it might just protect agains bad fungi. if you dont worry about nutrient break down why do alot of teas you see have nutrients that needs to be broken down to become availible? is it pointless to add or is there a point in adding guano and other nutrients that need to broken down.

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Again I'm no expert but I do have a bit of a biology background.

The guano's, bone meal, blood meal, compost whatever you add to your tea is food for the microbes.. adding compost is the best way to get a good population of microbes to start with... For microbe populations I use my own compost from my backyard and worm castings.

Mycos are eaten up by bacteria you are right.. most (if not all) require root exudates to survive.. the only thing I've ever read about mycos and compost tea is that it is a good idea to add them to the tea about an hour or two before using. (otherwise its pointless and bacteria will eat em up)

I would recommend picking up the book "teaming with microbes"

also... different types of beneficial bacteria and fungi operate differently and release different nutrients for the plant.. so if you have amended your soil with guano, blood meal, kept, etc, etc, etc it makes sense (to me anyway) to brew your tea with those some amendments

ottawaliquid said:

also... different types of beneficial bacteria and fungi operate differently and release different nutrients for the plant.. so if you have amended your soil with guano, blood meal, kept, etc, etc, etc it makes sense (to me anyway) to brew your tea with those some amendments

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so adding the same amendments to the tea as your soil will help the multiply the bacteria from those amendments in the tea. which added them to the soil when you water.

wouldnt you find it more benefitial and get full use out of your nutrients by mixing up whatever your put in your compost tea(dry amendments) and let it compost for a couple weeks to a month. all the nutrients will be broken down and you will have a nutrient full tea with alot of different microbes still. i guess ill just have to make and experiment to see how much more nutrients is in the tea after letting the brew mix "cook"

But AACTs are like a super boost of microbes... AACTs (from my understanding) have a lot more of a microbe count than really good compost.. so yes you are right that good compost will have more readily available nutrients but the microbes are what will deliver them to your plants

I think the biggest thing to point out is, remember, the best compost tea is made from, compost! The point of the tea is to cultivate the organisms already living in the compost. Molasses is their feed, and they multiply in the sugar rich oxygenated water.

Cook compostables, make compost. Then make tea.

Micro organisms colonize soil, and help plants uptake nutrients in the soil.

Yes cook the mix. I make super soil and then use a handful of that in my compost teas. It works beautifully

ottawaliquid said:

But AACTs are like a super boost of microbes... AACTs (from my understanding) have a lot more of a microbe count than really good compost.. so yes you are right that good compost will have more readily available nutrients but the microbes are what will deliver them to your plants

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dead on. couldn't agree more. + rep