|
Some of these posts are very old and might contain outdated information. You may wish to search for newer posts instead.
|
mycocurious
Mike O. Kuerias



Registered: 02/09/07
Posts: 1,265
|
Compost Tea...
#7196836 - 07/19/07 09:21 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Couldn't find much through searches on the topic so I thought I'd put one up for discussion...and the archives.
--- A couple years ago I got hooked on the whole organic gardening thing. It's just cool ordering 1000 ladybugs or two dozen praying mantis eggs to solve bug problems then simply laying down some toxic pesticide. Whatever, that's neither here nor there.
Anyways, I got hooked on this concept of making compost tea about a year ago and, at least to me, it's like the garden wonderdrug. I use it for everything from a foilage spray to a pure fertilizer... and it dawned on me this morning that it might make a really good liquid to hydrate substrates.
Think about it, the substrate will be pasteurized anyway to remove all non-beneficial microbe - so if any where present in the tea, they would be killed as well. But whereas your poo/coir might only have a marginal amount of those beneficial microbes remaining, the fresh compost tea would be TEEMING with them. Not to mention a full array of micronutrients that the mushrooms could benefit from. 
Anyways, for anyone prepping substrate in the near future that's willing to try it, here's how I brew my tea. I'd love to hear results, I'll be unable to test it myself for several months...
Compost Tea: ------------
- Fresh Compost - Dechlorinated Water - 5 Gallon Drink Cooler - Air Pump & Aquarium Bubblers
--- Get one of those large, 5 gallon drink coolers, you know, the kind you see on job-sites filled with ice-water. They're perfect for this application and they're only like $20 USD.
Set up the aquarium pump and bubblers on the bottom of the cooler. I use two of the large "air stone" kinds that are self-weighted down.
Fill up the cooler about 2/3rd full of fresh compost and the rest with your dechlorinated water. All you have to do to remove the chlorine is let it sit in the sun for a couple hours, it will evaporate itself out. Chlorine kills a lot of the beneficial microbes so using plain tap water just won't work here. You can also use distilled water if you'd like. Soon I'll have a rain barrel so I'm going to start using that when I can. 
Stir up the mixture a little bit to make sure everything's wet and working and then put the lid on it, turn the bubblers on and let it run for the next two days, stirring a couple times a day - the compost tends to clump up on me after time...mixing it up up seems to help.
When it's finished, i just put several layers of cheese cloth over a bucket and drain the cooler into the bucket and then transfer that into gallon milk jugs until I'm ready to use them.
----
Comments, opinions, etc? I can't wait to try this one out myself, don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.
--------------------
Don't mistake my tone for a "matter-of-fact" attitude. I'm just presenting what I believe to be correct, until I'm corrected...
- How Myco-Curious Prepares Coir & Compost Substrates
- How Myco-Curious Builds A Bulk Humidifier
- How Myco-Curious Builds An Automated Greenhouse
------------------------------------
figgusfiddus said:
Keep in mind that inoculating or whatever in front of a flow hood won't help your bad substrate, your bad inoculant, your bad sterile procedure, etc. etc. etc. It's not a +3 flowhood of magic, it's just a tool.
|
GoodbyeOrb
Self-SacrificingPotency Tester



Registered: 04/09/07
Posts: 5,182
|
|
Instead of doing all that straining with cheese cloth, you could just put all the compost in a pillow case before you put it in the cooler, essentially just making a giant "tea bag." This would keep all that compost from floating around in the water, and you'd even be able to use the spigot on the cooler to dispense your tea.
|
GoodbyeOrb
Self-SacrificingPotency Tester



Registered: 04/09/07
Posts: 5,182
|
|
You could also do the entire process inside of a large homebrew vat, on a gas burner, allowing you to run the temp up so you can pasteurize while brewing. I don't know what the purpose of the air bubblers are, but I am going to assume agitation. You wouldn't be able to use them in a heated vat, you'd have to stir it. Just a couple thoughts. Sounds interesting though.
|
mycocurious
Mike O. Kuerias



Registered: 02/09/07
Posts: 1,265
|
|
The bubbler's are partially for agitation but more so for aeration of the tea.
Never really thought about a pillowcase, in all honesty, lots of composter's use panty-hose and in my humble experience, it's a nightmare. The pillow-case probably wouldn't be a bad idea.
As for pre-pasteurizing, pasteurization is only good for a couple days, at best (in my humble opinion) and you shouldn't go through the process until you're ready to do it. Besides, heating it up on a stove just makes it infinitely more complex and would likely bother the hell out of the wife. The less "non-cooking related" shit I can do on the stove, the better...lol.
--------------------
Don't mistake my tone for a "matter-of-fact" attitude. I'm just presenting what I believe to be correct, until I'm corrected...
- How Myco-Curious Prepares Coir & Compost Substrates
- How Myco-Curious Builds A Bulk Humidifier
- How Myco-Curious Builds An Automated Greenhouse
------------------------------------
figgusfiddus said:
Keep in mind that inoculating or whatever in front of a flow hood won't help your bad substrate, your bad inoculant, your bad sterile procedure, etc. etc. etc. It's not a +3 flowhood of magic, it's just a tool.
|
GoodbyeOrb
Self-SacrificingPotency Tester



Registered: 04/09/07
Posts: 5,182
|
|
eh the pasteurization was more an offshoot of contemplating the feasibility of using your tea as a misting replacement for regular water. Sounded like a good idea.
|
mycocurious
Mike O. Kuerias



Registered: 02/09/07
Posts: 1,265
|
|
See... I don't know about that, nor would I recommend using it to hydrate your casing layer. Your casing layer should be as non-nutritious as possible and the same should apply to the water used for humidification...
I don't think it would be a good idea for soaking grains either because there's already enough nutrition there - at least for the purpose of germination. Of course, this is still all speculation at this point...
--------------------
Don't mistake my tone for a "matter-of-fact" attitude. I'm just presenting what I believe to be correct, until I'm corrected...
- How Myco-Curious Prepares Coir & Compost Substrates
- How Myco-Curious Builds A Bulk Humidifier
- How Myco-Curious Builds An Automated Greenhouse
------------------------------------
figgusfiddus said:
Keep in mind that inoculating or whatever in front of a flow hood won't help your bad substrate, your bad inoculant, your bad sterile procedure, etc. etc. etc. It's not a +3 flowhood of magic, it's just a tool.
|
GoodbyeOrb
Self-SacrificingPotency Tester



Registered: 04/09/07
Posts: 5,182
|
|
i wasn't only thinking of misting mushrooms, i was thinking along the lines of anything that grows and requires water.
|
|
|
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Shroomism, george castanza, RogerRabbit, veggie, mushboy, fahtster, LogicaL Chaos, 13shrooms, hamloaf, cronicr, Stipe-n Cap, Pastywhyte, bodhisatta, Tormato, Land Trout, A.k.a 1,739 topic views. 30 members, 131 guests and 33 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ] |
|