In my search for 'verstehen' on this whole compost tea thing, it seems to me there are a number of questions that never really get answered.
For example, in Elaine's piece in Kitchen Gardener http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/G00030_p3.asp She talks about filling a five gallon bucket half full of compost, then bubbling up air through the compost plus nutrients. But in the larger systems much smaller amounts of compost are used, so the issue of extraction becomes more critical. For my part I do not understand why you can't just scale up the bucket system and use higher powered air systems, for example the sorts you see advertised for ponds, aquaculture and the like, eg: http://www.airdiffusion.com/ http://members.magnet.at/aquaculture/aeration.htm#Ceramic%20Diffusers http://www.faireyceramics.com/cpp/aerationdiffusion/ad1.htm http://www.higherpowersupplies.com/Tanks/Conebottom.htm http://www.stamfordscientific.com/Tube/tube1000.html http://www.mnmonline.com/equip.html It seems to me that the ideal thing would be to have as gentle a high oxygenation system as you could manage, and to put the compost in there in as natural and unsifted a state as possible, then use occasional stirring as an 'extraction' technology, or use stirring before or after the air and water bubbly phase..... Simple experiments using just compost and water, then stirring, to determine extraction quality, could be done, and it seems to me, should be done and reported out. But I agree in principle with Steve, why separate the compost from the general process if you can avoid it? The Soil Soup sock thing, which I have, seems needed by the Soil Soup machine to keep chunky stuff from clogging up the mechanism of that device, but aeration through fine bubble diffusion, or even coarse bubble, seems not to need such a creature. If you look around at the commercial tea makers, they seem increasingly to use bubbling, for example: http://www.compara.nl/Compost_Tea_Systems.htm http://www.growingsolutions.com/products.html http://www.composttea.com/100gallon.htm http://www.freedom-organic.com/fo_smartbrewers.html So this obviates, or at least reduces, the need to 'put a sock in it' and allows for the compost to more completely mingle, mix and meander whilst breeding up the microherd oh so joyously. It should also mean that relatively small scale equipment in the 10- 50 gallon range should be available at about the cost of the aeration equipment plus container. With a 100 gallon system from the big boys going for as much as $4000 US, the economies of figuring this out on a DIY basis seem substantial. Some bubblings, Frank Teuton ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 6:06 AM Subject: Re: First Tea Analysis Results > > In a message dated 4/28/02 8:13:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > << One of the early issues of compost tea brewing was compaction that > occurs within the compost tea bag. This is commonly solved by > inserting and additional aeration nozzle into the tea bag itself. > This physically pushes the compost away from compaction and provides > direct aeration. I'm very interested in hearing experiences contrary > to this and in hearing from Dan, who, as I understand it, uses this > method. >> > > Try free flowing compost and food in the brewer, intimately in touch with the > water... SStorch > >
