Worm tea

[Bear777]

Just started on brewing my worm castings for some worm tea, done with a bubblesnake in a 20 litre pail and a 60 litre per minute compressor, 20 to 27 degrees temp, ran for 30 hours with raw organic sugar cane, but I noticed that I didn't seem to build much of a foamy head on top during the brew that I expected to see based on research I had done on the subject. Anyone here have some experience on the matter that they'd like to share. I was wondering if I just didn't have enough active microbes in the castings anymore to breed enough to produce the foam as the castings were overdue to be removed from the bottom of my worm farm and didn't have as much moisture in them as I would have liked to maintain them over winter, or maybe my ratios of castings to sugar to rain water were off, 1 cup castings to 1 cup raw organic sugar cane to about 15 litres of rain water. The plants I had transplanted into my castings around the roots seemed to not have any shock, so I had assumed their must be some decent microbiology going on in the castings themselves.

 

[itchybro]

making a aerated tea can be hit & miss imho , it might have been ready earlier in the brew could also be ready later in the brew , without a scope to check & also the ability to identify what your brewing makes it tricky

fresh castings are always better than any that have sat around & dried , differing foods in the brewer are also good like fish hydrolysate ( not fish emulsion ) , if your going to use sugar cane use a sugar called Rapadura Sugar & dissolve it in a little warm water before adding it to the brew so it doesn't just drop to the bottom of the bucket , sugar cane go's through processing to become white table sugar , rapadura is the least processed & hasn't had the molasses removed from the sugar & is higher in minerals & vitamins

if you have a worm farm try fresh castings & have a look round for what's called an Air Lift Compost Brewer , Microbeman is the man http://microbeorganics.com/#Video_Microbulator this link from his site on how to make your own air lift brewer

lastly making a compost extract is easier to diy , doesn't take as long to make , you aren't trying to multiply organisms with an extract so no food needed your just extracting the microbes that are on the casting or compost & then watering them into your soil

prob doesn't help you much but i've been down this tea brewing rabbit hole & imo compost or castings extracts are the way to go from a home brewer point of view

 

[Bear777]

making a aerated tea can be hit & miss imho , it might have been ready earlier in the brew could also be ready later in the brew , without a scope to check & also the ability to identify what your brewing makes it tricky

fresh castings are always better than any that have sat around & dried , differing foods in the brewer are also good like fish hydrolysate ( not fish emulsion ) , if your going to use sugar cane use a sugar called Rapadura Sugar & dissolve it in a little warm water before adding it to the brew so it doesn't just drop to the bottom of the bucket , sugar cane go's through processing to become white table sugar , rapadura is the least processed & hasn't had the molasses removed from the sugar & is higher in minerals & vitamins

if you have a worm farm try fresh castings & have a look round for what's called an Air Lift Compost Brewer , Microbeman is the man http://microbeorganics.com/#Video_Microbulator this link from his site on how to make your own air lift brewer

lastly making a compost extract is easier to diy , doesn't take as long to make , you aren't trying to multiply organisms with an extract so no food needed your just extracting the microbes that are on the casting or compost & then watering them into your soil

prob doesn't help you much but i've been down this tea brewing rabbit hole & imo compost or castings extracts are the way to go from a home brewer point of view

Thanks for your insight,
I will look into extracts, haven't heard of them before,
I am glad i used the right type of sugar cane