Question About MicrobeMan Tea Ratios

[GreenGuySF]

Quick question about the Ratios for tea MicrobeMan has on his website

I've been brewing tea in a 10gal Brute trashcan with an Eco Air-4 pump and been calculating the amount of everything I add per this 10 gal size

If my air stones can support it, could I brew a higher-test tea say by adding amounts of everything for say 30 or 40 gals, then adding extra 20-30 gals. after I brew it? Only oxygen is the limiting factor for microlife to grow right, not volume of water?

 

[OrganicOzarks]

First and foremost you are wanting to "water down" a tea with which you do not know what lay inside. It is possible to do something like you want to do. However I would not think it wise. I brew in a 10 gallon brewer sometimes, and when I lack a couple of gallons I will "water" it down to get what I need. The only reason I feel comfortable doing this is because I have a microscope, and I can scope the "watered down" brew. Under the scope the couple of gallons I add does not make the tea to a low enough quality to where I would not use it.

You are talking about "watering down" a shit load of a supposed super charged tea. The first thing that jumps out at me is that you are thinking that you are going to get a "super charged" tea with air stones. I don't think that will be the case. I have tried literally 100(this is conservative) different designs of brewers, and the least effective is air stones, and dangling your compost in the water like a nut sack.

I would work on brewing a quality 10 gallon tea first. The only way to find out if it is quality is to use a microscope. Once you have 10 gallons of quality tea brewed each and every time then I would start to work on a tea that could be watered down a bit. I do not see you ever brewing a tea that could be watered down as much as you want to.

The easy fix would be to jump back on microbemans website, and build a 50 gallon air lift brewer. I made one just to test the design, and it worked well. With a few tweaks I got quality tea every time. It will only cost you about $200. No need to play the guessing game.

I believe you have your cart before your horse.

 

[Apache123]

I made one just to test the design, and it worked well. With a few tweaks I got quality tea every time. It will only cost you about $200. No need to play the guessing game.

Do you mind sharing your design with pics and or directions? Thank you!

 

[OrganicOzarks]

Do you mind sharing your design with pics and or directions? Thank you!

As far as air lifts go there are many people with threads on how to build them.

My brewers are a proprietary design, and thus I can't give any details.

There is plenty of info on the net that can lead you to build a brewer that will brew quality tea. I would first buy a scope before I did anything though.

 

[DARC MIND]

agree on the airstone also note

It is important to not overload a brew with foodstocks, otherwise you can easily compromise the dissolved oxygen capacity of the unit.

_ http://microbeorganics.com

 

[BugJar]

I'm going to have to build a 5 gallon stir plate this summer.

that would be so sweet for aact

 

[mapinguari]

airlift brewer design

airlift brewer design

Do you mind sharing your design with pics and or directions? Thank you!

http://www.microbeorganics.com/12galweb.jpg

You can scale this up.

I use a 35 gallon cone-bottom induction tank with an Eco 5 air pump.

Microbe Man uses a diffuser where the airline enters the PVC, but you can just connect it directly and get plenty of aeration from the airlift / cascade breaking the surface tension.

I like that he shares this design and encourages people to use it even though he sells these.

 

[Apache123]

As far as air lifts go there are many people with threads on how to build them.

My brewers are a proprietary design, and thus I can't give any details.

There is plenty of info on the net that can lead you to build a brewer that will brew quality tea. I would first buy a scope before I did anything though.

Thank you! What is a good but affordable Micro Scope? I am piss broke but would love to pick up one.

Cheers,

 

[OrganicOzarks]

Thank you! What is a good but affordable Micro Scope? I am piss broke but would love to pick up one.

Cheers,

Something like this would work
http://store.amscope.com/b120.html

Pretty much anything on this page would work.
http://www.amscope.com/Binocular.html

 

[Granger2]

An alternative from http://microbeorganics.com/
"One could incorporate good quality glass bonded diffusers if one did not wish to mess with PVC pipes and making their own diffusers. These diffusers are resistant to break down by microbes and can be cleaned with muriatic acid (but are not environmentally friendly to clean). They are called Sweetwater medium bore diffusers and are available at http://www.aquaticeco.com . They are far superior to homemade PVC diffusers in terms of sustaining DO2 because they produce finer bubbles . There is no truth (that I have seen) to the statement that fine bubbles damage some microbes."

Another choice would be Deep Water Innovations Micro-pore Air Diffusers. Good luck. -granger