I don't know, I'm sure someone else will chime in and defend the product but to me it looks like the Keep it Simple Compost Tea Brewer may be good at brewing compost tea but it looks more like a device that works well at separating money from suckers. Especially their "cheapest" 5 gallon model.

The pump they use seems to be this inflatable toy pump which you can get for less than $40. Pumps like that don't last long and are only meant for running short cycles. Their own info seems to confirm that since they say the pump will only last for 30 uses. Unless you buy the heavy duty kit which is twice the money.

Do a search for aquarium pump compost tea and you'll find lots of good links to designs. Here's compost tea brewer design from the Pennsylvania Dept of Environmental Protection.

Others are similar except you attach a bubbler to the ends of the hoses to create finer air bubbles. I think air stones might be harder to keep clean.

Go to your local pet store and ask them for an air pump that has enough capacity for 3 air wands/bubblers and the tubing, bubblers and valve and you'll probably spend a third or less than the cost of that kit.

I'm linking to a tea maker that I posted for a guy several years ago. It was tested at a training session with Dr Elaine Ingham and came out better than all but one of the large commercial tea makers. The Pennsylvania tea maker looks very similar but putting an air stone in the bag seems to be the magical element of the tea maker I posted.

There are a lot of questions about using chlorinated water with tea. Some of my local organic gurus attended that same training session with Dr Ingham and have tested San Antonio's water. What they found was that the chlorine seems to kill about 50% of the microbes. Still, that leaves 50% that you would not have gotten had you not made the tea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Deuley's Little Texas Tea Maker

dchall,

At this training, did they take measurements of the amount of chlorine in San Antonio's water? I'm just curious because water from different cities have different amounts of chlorine in them. Your city water may have only killed 50%, but another city's water may kill 85%. It's nice to quantify things.

While Chlorine is a very effective bacteria stat when sprayed on your soil there would simply not be enough in the water to kill all the soil bacteria. In controlled tests there probably is a greater kill rate than would be seen in nature.

kimmsr, I agree when spraying it directly on the soil, but we're talking about compost tea. The chlorine will kill a lot of the bacteria, when mixed with the house water, before the tea even hits the ground. Not all of it, but the amount would depend on how much chlorine is actually in your water.

As far as using city/chlorinated water, I was told at one point to aerate the water for at least 24hrs prior to adding the compost. Supposedly this helps to dissipate the chlorine levels.

Just a thought

Jim

jlaak5, most people are applying compost tea with hose-end sprayers, hooked directly to one of their outside spigots. I'm not sure how your approach would work in this case.

Do not use Chlorinated water to make compost tea. Today most places are using a more stabile product, Sodium hypochlorite, in place of the old, and much more dangerous liquid Chlorine. Sodium hypochlorite does not gas off from water in 24 hours like Chlorine did.

San Antonio's chlorination varies every day. It would be nice to see more science behind this topic.

I am taking a class on Sat morn. on compost tea given by the New England Wildflower Society. I will ask some questions regarding chlorine and microbes.

Al

The idea of removing all chlorine from the water is adopted from the aquarium world where you have live animals. Even then, fish don't immediately croak, but get damaged by chloramine. It may be important in a lab where consistent results are a requirement, but in-the-field compost? Municipal water is chlorinated to a concentration of 2 to 10 ppm, or 2 to 10 mg per liter. Chlorine is a reactive agent, not a catalytic one. It reacts with dead plant cells just as much as it reacts with live microbes. Which is to say that the chlorine is used up by the organic matter in the water. If you dump 100 grams of biologically active organic matter into 1 liter of water, the ratio of chlorine to organic matter is 10,000 to 50,000 to 1 by weight. It would seem to me that what little chlorine is in the water is swamped by the amount of organic matter. In other words, when making tea, don't worry about the chlorine. If you really want to tweak it, use hot water from the tap (60 degrees C) and let it cool to tepid while bubbling. Five minutes.

Using hot water and letting it cool (while bubbling) is a good idea. The heat will have driven off all the gasses in the water or will drive them off while cooling. The bubbles should ensure the water has at least some oxygen when it cools.

Also, the resulting water is at a similar temperature (40c) as an active compost heap. The good bacteria are thermophilic. Bad bacteria aren't.

The problem with water at 40 degrees C is that it cannot hold any oxygen. Basically the oxygen is boiled off in the "hot" water. Water temp needs to be at 25 degrees C (75 degrees F) or lower to really hold some oxygen.

I make compost tea quite frequently to feed my vegetable garden and I use water from my rain barrel. If you don't already have one, get a rain barrel, this will eliminate concerns about chlorine. I also made my own brewer with an aquarium pump and airline tubes and air stones, as suggested above. It cost me less than $20 and has worked fine all summer. Good luck, the compost tea helped my garden flourish this summer.

Water at 40C holds 6.5 mg/l oxygen. Water at 25C holds 8.3 mg/l. Some oxygen is boiled off, about 12%, but is rapidly replaced by the bubbles as the water cools to room temp.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/oxygen-solubility-water-d_841.html