sullivan666
Active Member
Can't seem to track down that link...maybe I imagined it. Anyway, in doing some reading on botanical teas, I'm a bit confused on whether I should aerate or not. I was planning on aerating like an AACT for 48 hours; however, LD says:
The 2 processes are completely different and the only thing that they have in common is that they involve water.
In an AACT you need air to shake the microbes loose from the humus and by having foods like molasses, alfalfa meal, kelp meal to the mix you will be growing on microbe colonies in some cases and in the case of fungi you'll be increasing the size because the brew time isn't long enough to launch spores. That's my understanding anyway.
In a botanical tea the process is one of various microbes, enzyme activity, etc. which is decomposing the plant material thereby releasing the elements and plant compounds.
One could accomplish the same thing without water in the case of botanical materials and that is where fermenting comes in. Even farmers when they store the harvest to create silage add certain lactobacillus strains to prevent rotting which would turn the plant material into a sludge - i.e. composted green (Nitrogen) plant material without the benefit of brown material (Carbon) having been added. A real mess actually - a smelly mess at that.
The 2 processes are completely different and the only thing that they have in common is that they involve water.
In an AACT you need air to shake the microbes loose from the humus and by having foods like molasses, alfalfa meal, kelp meal to the mix you will be growing on microbe colonies in some cases and in the case of fungi you'll be increasing the size because the brew time isn't long enough to launch spores. That's my understanding anyway.
In a botanical tea the process is one of various microbes, enzyme activity, etc. which is decomposing the plant material thereby releasing the elements and plant compounds.
One could accomplish the same thing without water in the case of botanical materials and that is where fermenting comes in. Even farmers when they store the harvest to create silage add certain lactobacillus strains to prevent rotting which would turn the plant material into a sludge - i.e. composted green (Nitrogen) plant material without the benefit of brown material (Carbon) having been added. A real mess actually - a smelly mess at that.