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On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

I have a 5 gallon compost tea brewer and I have several formulas. My question is this. Why do I need to keep adding starters to the bucket. It seems to me that if I leave 1 gallon of the completed tea in the bucket and then add all of the other ingredients, food etc, except a new starter with new organisms, that the organisms already present in the gallon of the old stuff should thrive with the new food etc making it unnecessary for me to add new compost to supply organisms. Why is my thriving compost tea not enough?

7/1/2019 9:11:04 AM

Eastern Pennsylvania

Seems like a sound argument to me. If you are making tea and using it that often I think it should work but I’m not an expert.

7/1/2019 12:21:03 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

The problem with reusing the starter mix..thru time certain species will disappear. It may not happen immediately but if you do not add new organisms it will eventually be brewing with less biodiversity.

7/1/2019 3:16:48 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

I was using a commercial starter and plan on keeping that going for awhile and adding some of my compost with each follow-up batch. Maybe about once every 2 weeks, 8 batches in all, I plan on starting a new batch using commercial starter.

7/1/2019 7:09:36 PM

Bloomington, IN USA

Well Marv, you could always get that microscope & check out what is in it yourself.
It would be interesting to see if you could tell a difference between the organisms in your batch with the commercial starter versus the population from using your tea as the starter.
By the way, I don’t think you would have to use a gallon.
You could probably get along with just using a pint, although using the larger volume might delay the loss of biodiversity.
If we are lucky, maybe Tad will see this thread & provide a much more informed opinion.

7/1/2019 10:47:17 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

I would do just that Materdoc but a new microscope and the learning process seems like more than I am up to and maybe buying the starter would be a lot easier and more successful as well? I have read some of Tad's stuff but don't have a clue about how to reach him. Using my own compost to make aerated tea would truly be a leap of faith.

7/2/2019 8:08:53 AM

Hot West Tennessee

Have my microscope and Compost Tea Quality: Light Microscope Methods . Wish me luck

7/2/2019 12:42:48 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

Good luck TNorange. On the Organic Forum elsewhere I am being told that what I want to do would work for 4 or 5 batches. I want to know how you make out with your microscope and brew.

7/2/2019 2:10:39 PM

Norfolk, UK

A compost tea company here in the UK, Symbio (http://www.symbio.co.uk) used to say that you could do a single ‘rebrew’ on the waste compost from the first brew as you suggest.

As I recall, they only recommended that you did it once tho before starting from scratch.

I think the thinking was that, post a brew - the ratio of microbes starts to drift to adapt to your set up (temp/food/oxygen). Constant rebrews then start to become less diverse, and starting ratio of bacteria / fungi become very different from that in compost.

I think then that’s why they recommend starting from scratch - or perhaps rebrewing just the once

7/3/2019 5:22:48 PM