Re: [compost_tea] Re: smell while brewing
Pierre - don't know if this should be OFF LIST or if it is of general interest. Let 'em complain?
You found your ACT smelled bad for a while near the end of your brew but smelled OK some later. I took a SWAG and said your air might be low.
You gave me your air input numbers 5 l/l water, and wondered if your air was OK
First, lets compare your air to ours. Gotta go thru this horrible English to metic. See if I can do that here understandibly. Are you also interpreting English to French? I tried to learn French when we expected to be shot down over there. I decided to take a chance that your folks would know enough English or Sign to get along And thanks Pierre for the many pick-ups your people made ar great risk. I looked forward to Pais in '43. Didn't have the pleasure!
Back to ACT, I concluded from tests we ran that it was not the water, it was the compost and nutrients. Water needs no air. Bugs do. Bugs are related to compost and nutrients - and temperture that affects the rate of eating and multipliction. Assuming a moderate amount of the bugs and food for a 50 gallon - 200 liter "tank" -
Our test work has said that 1.5 cfm is minimal air, if injected effectively.
Conversion
That would be 1.5 x 24 (liters) x60 ( hours to minutes) / (50x4)litters = 10.8 l air / l water.
Please check my math. If my math and conversions are right we inject
10.8 liters air per minute per liter water. We also double the air and double and even quadruple the water at times, but HOLD the air / compost and nutrients ratio near constant. At those air rates we think our air is all being used. You said you use 5 l air per minute per liter water.
( by the way verify your actual air. Ratings I found were not very close to real output.)
If we don't increase the compost and nutrients in a larger tank, what is the advantage of a larger tank? Let me guess here because that is how I find my way around in this field of many unkowns. I think the advantage is in "more breathing room:. If the herd is concentrated in minimal water any slight change in air input or circulation annomoly, the concentated bugs might run out of breath, at least locally or for short periods. More water relieves congestion. Like an over crowded room - needs better ventilation. .
A bit rough, these calculation assume 1 liter = 1 qrt. Not exact but neither are my other data.
So, is your air enough? Seems to be marginal if ours is just enough. But you can easily over load with compost and nutrients. Especially rich nutrients like fish. Fish can use immense aeration. On larger brewers we have increased the air because we think is is safer to use more air.
Our 500 G brewer injects 60 cfm, loads 15 gallons of compost and specified kelp and humic acid plus limited additonal nutrients.
Converson to metric:
Our 500 g brewer injects 24x60x60 = 86,400- liters air per hour into 2000liters of water.
We find our 500g brewer is hard to overload. at 43.2 l air per l water.
The same air can handle up to 1,000 gallons. For the 1000 g water ( 21 liter air per liter water) the compost nutrient load is near double the limit for the 500 g system. When we go on up to 1500 and 2550 g we increase the air. Again the compost and nutrients are ncreased near the ratio of air..
Don't know if the approximations we work with tells you anything that helps or not. It tells me that our practical brewer design is not Aerospace engineering.
We don't thin the heads of the rivets to save weight.
By the way Pierre, I think that what you and I - and all the others - in this micro-biology of soil and plants field of work are doing a dam sight more important work than anythiing being done in space ! I think we humans need to learn to live with our EARTH. Bob www.bobsbrewers.com
pierre charles crozat <pccrozat_at_fastmail.fm> wrote:
hi bob
We aerate at a rate of 5 liters of air per litre of liquide per
hour. Could that be insufficient? The brew is mixed very well during
the whole process and there are no stagnation areas in the tank.
--- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, Robert Norsen
wrote:
> Pierre, How do you KNOW you are well aerated? What nutrients do
you use? some take a LOT of air ! Your smell test sounds like not
enough air. Bob
>
> pierre charles crozat
wrote:
>
> When we brew ACT we have at about T+24H a smell that is not as
> pleasant as the smell of good fermenting ACT. It lasts for about
10
> to 12 hours and is then replaced by a pleasant "neutral" smell.
The
> brew is well aerated during the whole process and we are probably
ok
> for nutrients (ie we don't feed the brew too much). What should we
> understand about the process from that smell?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
Yahoo! Groups Links
Received on Tue Mar 08 2005 - 23:39:00 EST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:48 EST