I realized we had a bunch of compost juice in the trap on our composter so I harvested a little and started a brew in a 10 gallon bucket. Added some castings, tiny scoop of recharge, kelp meal, and some molasses.
After 24 hours I was not ready to use it and was suspect that I did not add enough molasses because one, I used a small amount and two I have read that recharge needs a heavy molasses dose to get going. Not to mention I was going to let it go and didn’t want what had been cultured to die. So, at 24 hours I added 2 more tablespoons of molasses. Sure enough after 12-18 hours I saw a lot more foam on the tea.
I used most of the tea, left like 2 liters of tea in the bucket and filled with chlorine free water. I then added 3 Tablesoons of molasses and started the air pumps again.
My theory is that if all the tea brewing is doing is farming micro beasts, why not leave some beasties in the tea, that were already cultured in my climate and that thrive in the medium I provided, and re-brew.
Any comments @Skydiver and @garrigan62? Anything else I should add besides molasses when doing the Re-brew? Possibly Kelp?
Yep feed em carbs and they’ll stay alive for awhile. The smell will tell you how things are. Smell it after a day and each day from there as it changes towards not earthy like stuffs dying. If you go too many days I would think more than molasses needed like some worm poo or like you mentioned kelp meal etc.
assuming the same recipe and ratios 24 hr leans bacterial dominate and 48 towards fungal dominate I think that’s the right way…lol
I started a tea about 5 days ago and kept adding molasses as plants weren’t ready to take a drink when the tea was “ready” Was only a gallon container brewed and diluted 6:1 and more as I too added more water and it’s still bubbling. If I suspects it’s gone stale I’ll toss it on my compost pile and start another batch if needed. I don’t constantly brew but when I do the hard part is timing things to Aline with the plants getting thirsty.
I’m still figuring this stuff out and need to go back and re read the stuff I posted here and learn more.
I read briefly about the recharge ingredients and remember that it could be made for a lot less $ cause that stuffs expensive. That was my quick general take on it I could be off base on that.
I should have taken samples from the tea each 24 hours and put under microscope to get a better understanding on what’s in there and in what populations. Next time maybe.
“4. Is it possible to brew perpetually? This is one of the most damaging claims I’ve heard from other brewer makers. The short answer is “no” and I’ll explain why. When ACT is brewed for 24-36 hours (approximate times based on multiple variables), you’re creating an unsustainable amount of aerobic microbial activity and diversity. At some point your tea “peaks.” There’s no way to tell for sure without a microscope but hopefully if you bought a brewer the manufacturer can give you guidelines based on your ambient air temp, compost/food inputs, elevation, etc…). Regardless, after this “peak” point the microbes will have eaten most of the food sources you added at the beginning of the brew cycle (molasses, microbe catalyst, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, etc…). When this occurs you will start to see monocultures over time, meaning one morphology (shape) of bacteria will dominate the tea, which will then be consumed by one type of flagellate. Your tea will fluctuate back and forth between bacteria and flagellates. The flagellates will eat all the bacteria until there’s not enough food left and then die off, only for the bacteria to bloom again and repeat the cycle. Think of it as a Darwinian experiment inside your brewer where “survival of the fittest” dominates. Remember that ACT is a “shotgun approach” to increase nutrient cycling. Well over time that diversity completely disappears and you lose much of the benefit of ACT. Of course, the first thought then is “why can’t I just add more compost or food sources to the brew after a certain time period?” This sounds like a great idea but in reality it just doesn’t work. I’ve tried brewing over the period of a week on multiple occasions where I took a brewer to trade shows and pulled samples every 10 minutes throughout the day. I found it very difficult to manage the tea and the quality of the brew would vary wildly from hour to hour. I’m not saying it can’t be done but I found even with intense monitoring with the microscope it was very challenging and I would have been much better off just throwing out the tea and starting over. Of course, these brews were just for demonstration purposes and not for actual plant or soil applications.”
or like you mentioned kelp meal etc.