Soil cooking and aact questions

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stoobeey

Well-Known Member
I got one of those 27 gallon black totes from home Depot to store and cook my amended soil. leaving the lid cracked but not click shut is no problem do I still need to drill holes on the sides and or the bottom? I'm also keeping my bag of worm castings in it so the soil is piled up on one side.



My other question is about making tea I only make about a gallon to 2 max. I have a small 3 watt dual outlet aquarium pump that says it can do up to an 80 gallon tank. are there's two small blue air stones that came with it large enough to do a small batch of tea like I make or do I still need to get larger air stones
 
kratos015

kratos015

Well-Known Member
The idea behind drilling holes is to allow for excess water to drain, while simultaneously providing aeration/oxygen to the cooking soil.

However, in my experience it is much better to just leave your soil dumped out onto a tarp or even just straight on the ground. This ensures your soil never goes anaerobic, which almost always happens when you leave it stored in a tote/garbage can. You'll have to dump the soil from the tote daily anyway, so constantly dumping the soil and shoveling it back into a container is just unnecessary work. Soil going anaerobic isn't a death sentence for you should it happen. However, your nitrogen will be leeched out of the soil in the form of the ammonium gas the anaerobic bacteria produce. You'll also have to add an extra week or two to the cooking process to ensure the bacteria in the soil are all aerobic and not anaerobic.



I haven't used teas in nearly a decade now, totally superfluous.

To answer your question, the two airstones should work just fine for you. I used 4 stones for a 5g bucket, so using 2 stones for a 1-2g batch will be just fine for brewing teas.
 
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stoobeey

Well-Known Member
kratos015 said:
The idea behind drilling holes is to allow for excess water to drain, while simultaneously providing aeration/oxygen to the cooking soil.

However, in my experience it is much better to just leave your soil dumped out onto a tarp or even just straight on the ground. This ensures your soil never goes anaerobic, which almost always happens when you leave it stored in a tote/garbage can. You'll have to dump the soil from the tote daily anyway, so constantly dumping the soil and shoveling it back into a container is just unnecessary work. Soil going anaerobic isn't a death sentence for you should it happen. However, your nitrogen will be leeched out of the soil in the form of the ammonium gas the anaerobic bacteria produce. You'll also have to add an extra week or two to the cooking process to ensure the bacteria in the soil are all aerobic and not anaerobic.



I haven't used teas in nearly a decade now, totally superfluous.

To answer your question, the two airstones should work just fine for you. I used 4 stones for a 5g bucket, so using 2 stones for a 1-2g batch will be just fine for brewing teas.
Click to expand...
In an apartment, only have a balcony. The tote has plenty of room to turn soil it's half empty. I've got no problem drilling holes on sides of it's somewhat necessary. Just double checking.. I mean shit was 10$ not like it was expensive. It is inside for a few months as night temps are a bit too cold for it even here in LA, my inside air temp is rarely below 70 and with me being upstairs I get a ton of sun which warms my place up to 80 easily.. I turned the soil up this morning . It's was 71. Thermocouple was reading 79.6 and climbimg when I walked out today. It's just amended roots soil. Eventually I'll have to buy peat to make more soil, but I had enough new and old (got 8gal worth coming down in 4 weeks and 5 more in 8 on top of the 2cuft I have reamended and. Cooking.. amending super super light 1/8cu to 1.5cu ft plus about 4# ewc 3# was random bag from Amazon. I added a pound or so fresh I got last week. Won't use for 2 more weeks I'm guessing)
 
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