compost tea micro brew

one gallon milk jugs
24 hour old water
vermicompost
air pump
heater

Nice brewer. Why the heater? It's best to brew at the same temp as your medium, so that you grow microbes that are comfortable in the environment they are about to get dumped into. Different temperatures favor different micro beasties.

If you are brewing in an area that's colder than your grow area and using the heater to bring it up to, say, 70 degrees, ignore this post.


Nice work.

Too warm and your brew turns anaerobic and that's not good...

I wouldn't be using the heater but had it and figured better to use it than not. The water comes out of the tap extra cold in the winter, the basement is kinda frigid. I bring the temp up to 68-72F. I did read the book: Teaming with Microges: The Organic Gardener's Buide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels, and highly recommend it!!! I also have been vermicomposting for the past couple years and recommend that as well, easy to maintain and really concentrated compost.
Related to the questions about temperature control here is and excerpt from the above mentioned book:
"Temperature is important when brewing compost teas. If it is too cold, microbial activity slows. If temperatures get too high, then the microbes are literally cooked or go dormant. Room temperature is ideal. Keep track of the water temperature. This is one of the variables you can adjust later, if need be, and a record of this information will be helpful to the lab testing your samples. If you cannot site your brewer in a warm place with steady temperatures, then a small, inexpensive aquarium heater might be needed; these come with automatic thermostats."

https://www.rollitup.org/organics/427826-soil-food-web-gardening-compost.html nice link to reference in RIU from the book mentioned in the last post.

did you just dump the vermi into the jug or do you have some sort of tea bag dealy?

Ahhh, good. You know your shit.

Tea bags are not necessary, but I like to use a paint strainer bag suspended in the middle of my bucket. I find when I don't use a bag, the top of my soil gets crusted over after a few applications.

Thanks Spicey. It is nice to go with one gallon teas, especially since it should be used fresh. The one gallon size is not too overwhelming. I dump the vermicompost in the jug. It is said adding the dregs to the soil adds to the fungal component of the tea. I am curious but not too concerned about the fungal aspect of teas. I will be adding oat powder to a jar and seeing if I can get some nice fungal growth. If I do I will use that in the soil directly.

I brew in 5 gallon buckets and when its a bit chilly I will break out the aquarium heater but for the most part I use a seed starter mat and sit the bucket on top of it, usually stays right at 70-72 unless its warmer than that in the room in which case I dont need it, but will use it to get everything up to temp and then unplug it..