tutorial Beginner's guide to AACT/Compost Tea

I'm starting to get my AACT together for the season
 
I've been re-vitalizing my worm box using some forest floor and oak leaves for bedding. They seem more cheerful in it than in plain coir and pumice stones that came with the box.
 

 
I've never been a good livestock keeper and I almost lost them to neglect. I'm going to try and feed them more -and more than just table scraps like alfalfa, a little kelp meal, soy meal, odds and ends, even a little rock dust.
 
I'm brewing small batches at least for a while.
This is my first recipe of the year.
 

 
1 t alfalfa
1 t kelp meal
1/4 t rock dust
1/4 t Espoma HollyTone  (3-4-3 I believe)  
1 T worm poo
a drizzle of molasses (<1 t)
a gal of spring water.
 
The cloth wasn't big enough to make a sack soI got a different one, but I'm afraid the weave is too tight.
 

 
I may swap it out mid-stream if it doesn't get some color in it's cheeks.by the end of day.
 
To keep me AACTive, I put together a little box of ingredients to mess around with so I don't have to hunt here and there for it when I need something.
 

 
It might work ;)
 
 
All I use is homemade compost and EWC in my AACT along with some unsulphered molasses.
Five gallons of dechlorinated water, three cups of compost and two tablespoons of molasses is my ingredients. It'd be best to leave that other stuff out of the tea and use it as a top dressing prior to applying the tea.  It just serves to decrease dissolved oxygen levels during the brew, which will affect how well microbes proliferate.  AACT's are for multiplying microbes, not supplying nutrients.  Nutrients (if you feel the need) are best provided by the use of botanical teas.  Or, better yet, just have the stuff mixed into your soil to begin with. :)
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
All I use is homemade compost and EWC in my AACT along with some unsulphered molasses.
Five gallons of dechlorinated water, three cups of compost and two tablespoons of molasses is my ingredients. It'd be best to leave that other stuff out of the tea and use it as a top dressing prior to applying the tea.  It just serves to decrease dissolved oxygen levels during the brew, which will affect how well microbes proliferate.  AACT's are for multiplying microbes, not supplying nutrients.  Nutrients (if you feel the need) are best provided by the use of botanical teas.  Or, better yet, just have the stuff mixed into your soil to begin with. :)
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Gotchya.
 
So, I swapped my teabag ingredients for a small handful of humus from under my  old leaf pile plus a T of EWC. 
Will that work?
 
Is this how it goes?
 
A. Create good compost and EWC to create a strong and varied population of microbes.
B. Harvest the microbes while expanding their numbers  in a weak, aerated molasses solution at room temperature or just above..
C. Dilute the microbe solution and
 a. Apply as a foliar spray to enhance pest and disease resistance.
 b. Apply as a drench to newly amended soil or a new compost pile  to jump-start the microbial colony to ultimately increase nutrient availability to the plants.
 
 
Now, about those botanical/nutrient teas. 
What's a good reference?
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
All I use is homemade compost and EWC in my AACT along with some unsulphered molasses.
Five gallons of dechlorinated water, three cups of compost and two tablespoons of molasses is my ingredients. It'd be best to leave that other stuff out of the tea and use it as a top dressing prior to applying the tea.  It just serves to decrease dissolved oxygen levels during the brew, which will affect how well microbes proliferate.  AACT's are for multiplying microbes, not supplying nutrients.  Nutrients (if you feel the need) are best provided by the use of botanical teas.  Or, better yet, just have the stuff mixed into your soil to begin with. :)
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What about adding guano's and rabbit manure? Could these be added during the brew or should they be added either as a top dressing to the soil (potting mix in my case)? 
 
MeatHead1313 said:
What about adding guano's and rabbit manure? Could these be added during the brew or should they be added either as a top dressing to the soil (potting mix in my case)? 
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I don't like to add anything to AACT as this is an acronym for Actively Aerated Compost Tea. Compost and or Vermicompost is all that is needed.
Use those as an amendment to the soil mix or a top dressing. Are those rabbits fed alfalfa pellets? Good stuff if they are. ;)
I see a lot of people on here using guanos as I guess that's what they are hearing is the thing to use but the fact is, and you may have heard me say this several times already, kelp meal and alfalfa meal blow guanos away as far as a soil amendment. They are so loaded with micronutrients that I am surprised more people don't mention them in place of guano's.
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
I don't like to add anything to AACT as this is an acronym for Actively Aerated Compost Tea. Compost and or Vermicompost is all that is needed.
Use those as an amendment to the soil mix or a top dressing. Are those rabbits fed alfalfa pellets? Good stuff if they are. ;)
I see a lot of people on here using guanos as I guess that's what they are hearing is the thing to use but the fact is, and you may have heard me say this several times already, kelp meal and alfalfa meal blow guanos away as far as a soil amendment. They are so loaded with micronutrients that I am surprised more people don't mention them in place of guano's.
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Thanks for the info PMD. I wonder if it'll be worthwhile doing a very small scale experiment trying both ways? I have enough of a couple of varieties that'll be in the same pots and same mix (either my own mix or Ocean Forest) that I could try 1 or 2 with one way and 1 or 2 with the other. Not very scientific but piques my interest either way.
 
"Boil and bubble
Toil and trouble..."
 
yehehhehhehheh
 
Not much foam, no real color change, odor is a little sweet and green, maybe from the initial alfalfa steeping and 'lasses, but the turbidity has picked up a lot - I'm thinking funghi
I'd like to get a microscope to at least get an idea of what's going on down there.
 
5 gal bucket, 4 gallon water, 4 air stones,

handful of mushroom compost,
1/2 cup FF Ocean Forest
1/4 cup molasses,
2 tbsp liquid seaweed,
handful grass,
1/4 cup bat guano......

24 hrs brewing no foam......
What would happen if i just used a cup of mushroom compost and 1/4 cup molasses to 4 gal of water?
 
Assuming the water is de-chlorinated and 65°+, at first glance, the molasses looks a little heavy, maybe heavy enough to slow it down.
It might be that those components don't have a rich or active enough myco popuplations to get things rolling.
On the other hand, foam is not always accurate about what's going on in the brew.
Without a microscope it's gonna be sort of a crap shoot from some university study I read said.
 
I tossed it and started a fresh batch with 1 1/2 cups of mushroom compost, 2 tbsp bat guano. 3 tbsp unsulphered molasses water ran with airstone for 5 hrs before adding ingredients
 
JJJessee said:
Assuming the water is de-chlorinated and 65°+, at first glance, the molasses looks a little heavy, maybe heavy enough to slow it down.
It might be that those components don't have a rich or active enough myco popuplations to get things rolling.
On the other hand, foam is not always accurate about what's going on in the brew.
Without a microscope it's gonna be sort of a crap shoot from some university study I read said.
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True as the foam only occurs because of a carbohydrate source. :)
 
24 hours in for my first AACT from scratch and it's looking pretty good!
20140330_190024.jpg
 
Pepper-Guru said:
I'm proud of the cultivation forum here. It's always nice seeing threads like this. A good many years ago, making a thread like this would've been witchcraft. Now not so much. Oh how this site has grown :)
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It's funny,
 
It still has a "Hippy" stigma, as if its some sort of mystical ideology and not a proven science.
 
 If people just got past the million dollar marketing, and maybe did a little research on the old Google... :P
 
 
 
They may find out that you don't need to spend loads of money for synthetic crap that adds salt to your soil.
 
Plants are a part of a system, they are evolved to participate in said system, take them out of that system and they don't do vary well.
 
 
 
The reason AACT works, is so simple. We are growing ecosystems for plants to participate in "automatically."  Everything the plant needs is produced by the environment it lives in. "Nature"
If people want to be Synthetic gardeners, fine. They need to be ready to supplement every compound that is "know" to be needed, and "when" it is needed.
 
 
It is so logical to use organic methods, that it's ridiculous to use synthetics when you really think about it.
 
Organic wins in:
 
Cost,
ease of use
effectiveness
flavor
 
bigbodybussey said:
Wow Guys, glad to see this guide has grown in my absence.  I hope everyone's season is off to a great start.  Missed you guys and this site.
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Hey,
welcome back bro!!!
 
Hows the garden going this year?
 
Cayennemist said:
 
 

 
Organic wins in:
 
Cost,
ease of use
effectiveness
flavor
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Don't forget healthier plants! A healthy soil food web creates a plant that is more resistant to disease and insects than inorganically grown plants.
pH as well. I don't even own a pH meter and my pH Up and pH Down are collecting dust as is my CalMag. :rofl:
 
I picked this up used on Craigslist Saturday for $40. Going to up my vermicompost production with a Worm Inn. :cool:
 
 
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