Re: [compost_tea] Flow forms
Hi Tim - A brook is a lovely thing to enjoy. If you have one nearby and can get the water I certainly would use the water. A little hard to get the water warm and warming it will reduce the sparkling O2 that makes it so fresh. That is what a brook or flow form does, adds O2. It would take a flow form many feet high and hundreds of feet long to add as much O2 per hour as your BobO. Then to get the water, ACT, up there to flow down you would need to pump it up thru a bug eating pump, via a pipe and recirculate the ACT that way.
A flow form sounds very romantic but as a means to grow bacteria and fungi, your BobO has a flow form beat many ways. Think of your BobO as being a tumbling water flow formt that is 3 feet long X one half the the number of seconds you run a brew
Lets see how that computes . 3' x 20 hours/ 2 X 60X 60 = 3x10 x 60x60 = 108,000 feet long.
and the flow form has to be steep enough to cause bubbling rushing water all the way. I would estimate that the slope would have to be 1 in 10 to give it that kind of action.
That would make the top of the flow form need to be 10,800 feet high. Or you could have a flow form 1,080 feet high and pump the ACT back up to the top 10 times during the 20 hour brew.
There are many romantic concepts from times and places when electric power and air pumps were not known. And ACT testing was not done. Many stories of special water treatments or conditions that are based on romantic thinking. Seldom includes facts as we currently insist on facts.
At another extreme there are brewers made that included a lot of pumps and pipe and vortices and hidden mystry that were desigend to look like a lot of money so they could sell for a lot of money. A good business plan. I tried to keep it simple. Not so good a business plan but I feel honest. Bob
Tim Livingstone <tlivingstone_at_jollyfarmer.com> wrote:
The recent discussion about flow forms has gotten my interest up.
As we all know from hiking in the wilderness, truly there is
something special about water from a good clean stream that is
unlike well water or treated water. Is there anyone that would know
more about flow forms used to brew tea and care to respond either
to me personally or to the group? Here are a few questions:
Q: Does anyone use water after it has flowed through a flow form
as the water source for brewing tea?
Q: Has anyone compared this type of water with regular water or a
normal brewer type design to see if it increases the microbial activity
or biomass?
Q: Does anyone actually "brew" tea by running it over a flow form
and is this better than a normal aeration system?
Thank you kindly to anyone who wishes to respond.
Tim Livingstone
Yahoo! Groups Links
Received on Thu Dec 16 2004 - 14:33:53 EST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:39 EST