Beer???

[Mr. Fantastic]

I have recently become fascinated with soil biology. In my ongoing quest to find new organic sources of food for the soil bacteria and microbes aka beasties, I find my self looking on google for information on using beer. It occurred to me that there is a lot of fermented sugars, yeast, etc. However I failed to find a good source of information. So I have to turned to ICmag where the pros are, anyone use beer as a microbe food? A starter for compost tea? Please experts weigh in.

 

[tonto]

some people swear by adding Guinness to soil for other veg. subscribed

 

[HippyJohnny]

I brew my own and know that the sugars are fully digested when fermentation is finished.

The raw sugars are present in the "wort". Thats the beer before the yeast is added to start working on the sugars and converting them to alcohol.

The steeped grains are great to add to your compost.

I am not sure if the actual beer is of benefit to the soil itself.
I'd like to hear from an expert as well...

 

[h.h.]

Drink the beer, use the pee.

 

[Fraggle Rock]

Seriously, my friends have had great success using a 40 oz. of Malt Liquor....Old English in every 5 gallon tea mixture!!!

 

[jaykush]

i use stale beer in compost tea brews when i find some bottle that someone didnt finish.

 

[DARC MIND]

Seriously, my friends have had great success using a 40 oz. of Malt Liquor....Old English in every 5 gallon tea mixture!!!

so this friend pours a whole 40oz of OE in 5 gal of tea???
crazy man, i use the old left over beer @ the bottom on my compost and worm bins. i like to let it sit till stuff starts to grow on it. i asked a similar question to some OFC members and not one comment.
I use it for the carbs and possible benefits from the yeast, the worms love it

 

[guest2012y]

I buy a 12 pack of cheap beer to add to my 55 gallon outdoor tea barrel every week or so.. It's sort of a perpetual tea,I just keep throwing stuff in there as I use it,and it works great. A box of guano,a gallon of fish,5lb. bag of sugar,a piss in the barrel,etc,etc,etc,
I think a pound per plant 50 miles south of Canada where it freezes as early as mid Sept. is good. 20 plants=20 pounds=$80.000 @ $4000 per lb.. I like beer!

 

[Mr. Fantastic]

Good info keep it coming!!

 

[growclean]

Tagged.

 

[secondtry]

I don't see the rationality:

Like HippyJohn wrote, beer is the product of feeding microbes, not food for microbes. And the alcohol in it is not helpful for many microbes, it's from a process of anaerobic fermentation.

 

[mad librettist]

alcohol is also phytotoxic...

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

It would seem intuitive that unfermented 'wort' would be better than finished beer, but with organic processes, it's often safer to assume there's more to the picture than meets the eye. A few months back, there was a similar thread. I was interested, so I watered a plant heavily with straight (homebrewed) beer. It didn't seem to mind it, and in fact grew just fine afterwards all the way to harvest. I have no idea what to conclude from this, and I would caution anyone trying to draw anything from such scant and unscientific evidence.

 

[h.h.]

I would think if anything the slight amount of alcohol would be equivalent to using chlorinated water. I used a little beer last year in the final days and I didn't notice any difference other than a slight lean to the right when I gave it too much.

 

[mad librettist]

good points but they don't point to alcohol actually helping.

what about must, mash, or lees?

 

[smokefrogg]

i am not going to try this any time soon

but i wonder if quality or how it was made matters?

steel reserve for instance, i would assume could kill the plant, it smells and tastes like metallic poison death

corona is so light and clean tasting, it seems like this wouldn't affect the plant in a negative way nearly as much as steel reserve

thick dark beer like guiness stout was mentioned, i feel like i ate a bunch of bread after drinking this, curious how the plant would like it?

then we can get into filtered and unfiltered, would the plant prefer a hefeweizen?

interesting thread, i have nothing to add but more questions, some day when there is space to experiment i will definitely want to try a little bit

 

[DARC MIND]

well i do know to much beer can kill plants
i had a little get together were a few my buddies came by and we did plenty of drinking and smoking.
well next morning me and my lady friend had to clean up the mess, ther were plenty of empty bottles and even a few open bottles with lots of beer left(wusses)
well while cleaning i looked over my shoulder and my friend was pouring all the left over beer on some of my basils, onions and white alyssums. my head hurt so i decided to let it go and not get into a possible argument; but after a month or so, i noticed the plants wilting and lots of discoloration, some even died.
so be careful when using beer, well corona to be exact..

 

[CT Guy]

Drink the beer, use the pee.

Drink the beer, pee in the toilet, and then use good ingredients for your tea or soil amendments. I think there's much better things available around your area or in your backyard or even in your house than beer or urine. Just my opinion though...

 

[mad librettist]

hey CT let's not discourage people from disposing of urine in sustainable ways, like composting.

 

[Trichgnomes]

A paradigm shift must take place, especially if one cares about playing a role as a member of the Gaia. Just my opinion, as always.


For more information on the subject, I came across this a few weeks ago, via a link on ICMag. If you haven't already read it, it's fairly short, I read the whole thing and bookmarked it.