Okay, some more discussion on Elaine's very clear and helpful post on buying
a brewer.
How easy is the brewer to take apart and clean? Yup, big consideration.
This is part of the time it takes every time to do a brew. I would have
liked it if my brewer had been sold with complete disassembly and cleaning
instructions, plus tools. I don't find it easy to unscrew the PVC pipe
elbows from the pipe to clean inside the air blowing pipe unit (whatever it
is called), but I received a post from one person trialing the same brewer
saying he'd found a biofilm inside that pipe and invented a way to clean it
out. Perhaps any manufacturer that writes out cleaning instructions will,
as part of the exercise, think about whether their unit is easily
cleanable, and may then be inspired to make modifications if it is not.
What else would I consider in buying a brewer? Well, if the brewer is sold
without a container (Bob Norsen brewers), then it is necessary to figure
out what kind of container I'm going to use, avoiding interior angles of
less than 120 degrees, and also avoiding materials that scratch or degrade
easily, or that may have toxic residues on them that could hurt the tea or
contaminate the soil (such as old petroleum barrels that somebody was using
a few months back, or plastic barrels that have held toxic chemicals).
I wanted to make a 5 gallon brew and wanted to use a 5 gallon paint bucket
to do so. But then I realized that once the brewer goes in and water is
added within the recommended range (a particular place on the brewer screen
window), I won't have the 5 gallons I intend to brew. My problem was that I
couldn't easily and quickly find an intermediate sized container between 5
and 32 gallon trash can that looked like it would do the job. So I ended up
brewing at least 15 - 20 gallons each time with my Bitti, which is sold to
make a range of brew sizes. Other list members may save people grief by
suggesting exactly which containers there are in the intermediate sizes that
will allow a true 5 gallon or 10 gallon brew.
Because there is a recommended fill line on the Bitti brewer, and using a
wider and shallower container doesn't necessarily allow me to reach that
fill line, it is not possible to simply assume that the same container can
be used for a 5, 10, 15 or 20 gallon brew. As far as I can tell, it may
require 2 or more containers to be able to make different sized brews.
I am under the impression that the issue of wide plus shallow versus narrow
plus deep containers and the effects on aeration has not been clearly
resolved here on the list. Information was posted by Bob Norsen suggesting
that deep and narrow was better for aeration than wide and shallow -- and
then one of the links from an aquarium pump source (as I recall) made the
statement that more surface area was better than less.
The type of pump (air vs. water) is also a consideration, especially if I
contemplate adding rock phosphate as a substrate for fungi or other
potentially pump-damaging materials. Pumps that have water passing through
them, as I understand it, can be damaged/pump can be burned out when
friction from materials like rock phosphate occurs inside the pump. There
are other substrates to use, like kelp, but at least people need to be aware
of this consideration on pumps.
The recipe that is used for the tests shows that the brewer can be used for
that recipe and will create aerobic teas under the conditions the tester
faced.
So seems to me that I would want to identify a recipe that has been tested
on that brewer and works for my area or conditions. Therefore, especially
if your environmental conditions are a little out of the norm, make sure you
know what the manufacturer is claiming as regards: the temperature of the
brew, the water pH you will be working with (about neutral is what you need;
you can make adjustments cheaply in many but perhaps not all cases), the
chance of removing the chlorine/chloramine from your water relatively easily
by bubbling it before brewing (some list members in Nevada with highly,
highly chlorinated and chloramined water say they must use reverse carbon
filtration). Ask if any testing has been done (perhaps the mfr. has seen
some customer results) for your conditions.
In other words, if a brewer
makes tea at 73 degrees and you live in a hot place where your brews are
likely to be around 80 (much less dissolved oxygen inherently at 80 degrees,
exacerbated by much faster reproduction of microorganisms at that temp, can
mean that tea recipe could go anaerobic on you or at least you won't
require as much time to brew)
makes great tea from well water and you have impossibly chlorinated city
water
makes great tea when it's clean but after 2 brews it'll be dirty and hard
to clean
makes great tea at pH 7 water and your water is pH 8
makes great tea in 24 hours but you have to figure out whether you can get
a decent brew in 12
makes great tea with a tested recipe requiring gradual addition of inputs
but you can't be there to watch all day and have to add all at once
makes great tea using proprietary mixes and you decide you'll just throw in
the main ingredients instead of the mix
I don't think I could assume that the same recipe (meaning ingredients list)
will net the same results for me, if the conditions vary. Likewise, if the
brewer makes great tea in 10 gallon batches and I want to make 20 gallons, I
can't just assume "well, I'll double the recipe." It doesn't work like
that.
So, even once I've found a brewer I like and feel sure the Mfr. has a recipe
with which consistent results were obtained, I will still have some work yet
to do with the brewer to make sure that what I am brewing is decent tea.
Additional equipment may be indicated in some cases, especially if I intend
to make tea that is not identical to the recipe that has been tested with
the brewer. It could be as simple as a bottle of vinegar to adjust the
water pH, or as sophisticated as equipment like a pH meter, DO meter,
chlorine/chloramine filtration equipment.
Also, when purchasing your brewer remember that it has to be APPLIED somehow
(more careful decision making about options). Decisions about brewer size,
transportability, and capacity can also be considerations -- remember, tea
either has to be either brewed onsite or TRANSPORTED to the application
site, so you're either transporting a brewer or some tea. Aeration of the
tea meanwhile will greatly enhance the # of active organisms -- and I don't
mean a bucket sloshing in the back of the truck. So you have more
expenditures to factor into the cost of making, transporting and applying
tea.
I'm not trying to discourage anyone from making tea, but only to make it
clear that from my experience to date, it's not like making Kool-Aid or
mixing some fertilizer into a hose end sprayer and spraying your plants.
A recent poster (sorry, can't find the post -- I know who it is but can't
recall if post is signed with name or login name) commented that he could
not be testing his tea often and asking customers to pick up the bill as a
cost of doing business. If so, at this point I think it is probably better
to stick with quality compost and not do compost tea. Maybe for lawns the
purchase of a DO meter (oxygen probe) would be a good enough surrogate for
testing at least part of the time (to be able to tell if the tea has stayed
aerobic), especially since turf requires a more bacterial tea anyhow and
that's relatively easy to produce. I just don't see any way we can assure
our customers we are putting down something healthy without at least some
testing of a recipe in our own conditions to make sure we can get consistent
results.
As was commented some months ago on this list, people THINK they are
replicating the recipe/conditions, but they aren't. Either because
directions are not complete, or the person brewing doesn't understand that
the temperature does make a difference, or hasn't really measured carefully
how much water they're using (I did that), or cut corners on aeration, or
didn't clean the brewer carefully, or don't have a way to test pH so
"assume" it's okay (I did that), and so on, OR because some of us (including
me) seem to be constitutionally "challenged" to follow the directions
EXACTLY without being tempted to add just one more magic ingredient or
change of process in an attempt to make it better.
This is what I conclude from my limited experience brewing tea and reading
others' experience. All you heavy hitters with more experience, feel free
to add, subtract, or straighten me out here.
Chris Reid
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Received on Sun Nov 16 2003 - 20:44:36 EST