🌱 Compost Tea Brewing: Do It Right (or Don’t Do It at All)
🌀 Bottom Aeration Matters
Aeration must come from the bottom of the tank.
Avoid irrigation tubing, fabric lines, rocks, bricks, or anything porous — they trap biofilm and go anaerobic fast.
✔️ Use solid PVC pipe with drilled holes.
🍽️ Choose the Right Foods
Fungal foods: humic acid, kelp, oatmeal/bran, fish hydrolysate
Bacterial foods: simple sugars (apple juice, molasses — only if bacteria are needed)
Wide carbon = fungi. Simple sugars = bacteria.
🌡️ Temperature Controls Time
72°F+ → 20–24 hours
~55°F → ~36 hours
~45°F → up to 48 hours
Hotter temps = faster growth = less food needed.
👃 How You Know It’s Done
Finished tea should smell earthy and clean.
No fish smell. No kelp smell.
If you can still smell ingredients, it’s not ready.
💨 Oxygen Is the Limiting Factor
Microbes can use oxygen faster than you can add it.
Too much food = oxygen crash = bad organisms wake up.
If it’s hot or you’re at higher elevation → cut food back.
🚫 Avoid These Common Mistakes
❌ No air stones (they go anaerobic inside)
❌ No rocks, bricks, or weights in the brew
❌ No overfeeding
❌ No letting tea sit after brewing
🦠 Targeted Add-Ons (Use Carefully)
Beauveria → soft-bodied insects (pinch only, never during pollination)
Trichoderma/Gliocladium → fungal disease (foliar only, not soil)
Mycorrhizal fungi → add at application, not during brew
🌱 Seed & Root Boost
Soak seeds or bare roots briefly in compost tea + mycorrhizae
Dry seeds before planting
Roots get colonized immediately after planting
✅ Bottom Line
Compost tea is biology management, not a recipe.
Oxygen first. Food second. Temperature always matters.
When in doubt — use less food, not more.