so i have been making some tea out of guana and worm castings and sometimes kelp...my question is how long before u use it should u make it??? i've heard varying things and would kinda like to know for sure...i've been making 10 gallons at a time and using it throughout a couple week period, and just recently heard that u should make it only a day or two before use...does it matter?? i guess in short, how long will tea last after being made???
Once you stop aerating your tea, you have about a 6 hour "window" to use the tea before the microbes start dying off. The main benefit from applying a tea is to infuse the rhizosphere with microbes. The older the tea gets, the fewer microbes it will have in it. It will have a marginal nutrient profile at best. The other consideration is that the longer the tea sits, the more likely it will become anaerobic. This will be evident by the smell of the tea...........as the microbes die off, they will begin to put off an odor that is akin to the "smell of death". You can keep the tea refrigerated to keep it from beginning to smell, but the microbe levels will dramatically diminish. Best of luck bro, chunk
does that mean with an air pump and stone??? because i do have it aerating 24 hrs a day... or does that mean something else...
Be cautious in using air stones for brewing AACT teas. They're extremely difficult to properly clean and if not immaculate harbor anaerobic bacteria. PVC is the preferred air diffuser as it can be disassembled for cleaning.
My method has always been to make your tea in hot, not boiling, water, and let it sit for 24-48 hrs outdoors where it can get sunlight, stir it regularly. I've never bothered to use air stones, and never had any negative consequences from doing so. A few old school guys I know make a tea out of bat guano and let it sit for two weeks before they use it. But they've been doing it for 30 years and won't tell me a lot of the other stuff they do
Perhaps you could pick-up a used Mr. Coffee device at a yard sale. I mean if you're going to wipe out the micro-herd then doing it with a touch of panache is always nice. Then again if you could find one of the antique percolators you could really have a confirmed kill zone! Just a thought. LD
An antique percolator might block the sunlight but it would hold near-boiling temperatures for a far longer period of time.
I made some tea. In a 3 gal container I added BS Molasses Seaweed Kelp Extract FF bloom(the organic one) Bat Guana Bone Meal Mature composted steer manure. I let this bubble for about 40hours in chlorine free water and no foam formed. Is foam supposed to form always to show that baterica is starting to build up?
Why the FF bloom, bone meal, bat guano, and steer manure but no earthworm castings? What was your aeration rate? I still use LD's basic recipe (I'm after microbes, not nutrients) and brew at ~75 for 18-24 hours with .4 cubic feet of air per minute per gallon of water.
LD/Madodah, come on now Mr Coffee Percolators!!?? I think even I know by now there might have been a little sarcasm in those statements - hopefully??lol!! JaK
