Its almost like a "sourdough starter" for making bread?interesting,love to hear more and hopefully cap will chime in too.

Yep, pretty much the same concept anyhow as a sourdough starter and I actually got the idea from making wine and moonshine....with moonshine and wine, you take the end of your distilling process called the "tail" and you use it to spike the next new batch you make.

I wanted to make sure and note the following, as it is probably the most important step in the process........

What I found was that when I would transfer the inoculate to a new batch of tea, I would loose most if not all of the biology that was added that was suppose to "jump start" the new batch with.

It seems the starting solution of the new batch was not very well balanced to support the biology present. I found that part or most of the brew time when brewing a tea is a big part of "conditioning" the solution.....this is achieved by the by-products produced by bacteria, enzymes, and aminos.......

So to make sure that your new tea batches will always be acceptable for your inoculates, I have come up with a method to make sure this happens.

What I started doing was mixing up and preparing the new tea batch, and then taking a very small sample of it, like a cup, and you would then add a few drops of the inoculates from the previous brewed tea batch for testing...

After your done mixing and prepping your new tea batch, but BEFORE you add the drops of inoculate to the cup sample, take a sample and scope with a glass slide and microscope.

Give it a few hours and then take another sample to scope on a glass slide.....

If your new tea batch is acceptable, you will see on your microscope sample biology alive and moving around (or trying to anyhow).

It is a bit difficult to describe here, but if you tried it and took the before and after glass slide sample, you will very easily be able to tell the difference. If the "after" slide looks exactly the same as the "before" glass slide you looked at, then you know your new tea batch is NOT acceptable and you need to remix........

After a few "trial & errors" you will easily be able to "tweak" your new starting tea batches, and once you find a acceptable mix, you can keep it using as all future batches should be "ok" as well.

From that point on, you will only need to "spot check" your new batches about every couple weeks to make sure the biology has not changed so much that your new tea batch will not accommodate the new biology present, or the "evolved" biology I should say.

I am planning to detail the exact steps I took for prepping and testing as well as brewing and inoculating......I am about to start a completely new batch very soon, that is based on all the previous testing data to date. I have changed the starting ingredients a lot since I first started........

I will also include a check list of items that you need to have on hand.

Be Well
HR

good thread. Will be interesting to hear your results. in conjunction to your problem with the beni's diein off in the new batch that you brew up, generally this houldn't be to much of a problem in my experience if you just re-use the same formula from the 1st batch and just add a little more food. but i see what your sayin bout the different things cultivatin different beni's..anyways interesting stuff. Take it easy

HydroRocks said:

Yep, pretty much the same concept anyhow as a sourdough starter and I actually got the idea from making wine and moonshine....with moonshine and wine, you take the end of your distilling process called the "tail" and you use it to spike the next new batch you make.

I wanted to make sure and note the following, as it is probably the most important step in the process........

What I found was that when I would transfer the inoculate to a new batch of tea, I would loose most if not all of the biology that was added that was suppose to "jump start" the new batch with.

It seems the starting solution of the new batch was not very well balanced to support the biology present. I found that part or most of the brew time when brewing a tea is a big part of "conditioning" the solution.....this is achieved by the by-products produced by bacteria, enzymes, and aminos.......

So to make sure that your new tea batches will always be acceptable for your inoculates, I have come up with a method to make sure this happens.

What I started doing was mixing up and preparing the new tea batch, and then taking a very small sample of it, like a cup, and you would then add a few drops of the inoculates from the previous brewed tea batch for testing...

After your done mixing and prepping your new tea batch, but BEFORE you add the drops of inoculate to the cup sample, take a sample and scope with a glass slide and microscope.

Give it a few hours and then take another sample to scope on a glass slide.....

If your new tea batch is acceptable, you will see on your microscope sample biology alive and moving around (or trying to anyhow).

It is a bit difficult to describe here, but if you tried it and took the before and after glass slide sample, you will very easily be able to tell the difference. If the "after" slide looks exactly the same as the "before" glass slide you looked at, then you know your new tea batch is NOT acceptable and you need to remix........

After a few "trial & errors" you will easily be able to "tweak" your new starting tea batches, and once you find a acceptable mix, you can keep it using as all future batches should be "ok" as well.

From that point on, you will only need to "spot check" your new batches about every couple weeks to make sure the biology has not changed so much that your new tea batch will not accommodate the new biology present, or the "evolved" biology I should say.

I am planning to detail the exact steps I took for prepping and testing as well as brewing and inoculating......I am about to start a completely new batch very soon, that is based on all the previous testing data to date. I have changed the starting ingredients a lot since I first started........

I will also include a check list of items that you need to have on hand.

Be Well
HR

Click to expand...

I'll chime in with this:

"coooool."

I'll be watching. This sounds great. Any way you can post some microscope pics?

like the idea, i'm very close to getting my own microscope. Good luck i'm sub'd. microscopic pics would be great.

You guys read my mind....x-mas is very close.....

Santa, if your reading this, please bring powered scope with USB connection and software.....

What????????

You guys didnt know Santa grows??

FYI- There are some really great deals on very simple powered scopes for those wanting to get one......I can not explain in words how much you will learn by looking at glass slides and watching the progression of your tea......it also takes pretty much ALL the guess work out of making a tea and determining brew times, among a ton of other useful information....

The tea I produce these days looks better than the stuff found in a bottle......it is so pure and clean and the smell is of the freshest "soil" or "earth" smell that you have EVER seen or smell.....it is hard describe it actually......I will post some pics here in a bit of some of the batches as they progressed......I WISH I could somehow transfer the "smell" of a evolved tea......the pics do not do it justice.......it makes you want to drink it almost!!

This smell is actually one of the more less scientific ways to test to see if your tea is on the right track without looking at slides, as if you smell something foul, then you know something has gone wrong.......this wonderful smell has this fragrance to it.......i think that if "organic" had a smell......this would be it maybe....

HydroRocks said:

You guys read my mind....x-mas is very close.....

Santa, if your reading this, please bring powered scope with USB connection and software.....

What????????

You guys didnt know Santa grows??

Click to expand...

Of course santa grows,why do you think hes so jolly...

fishwhistle said:

Of course santa grows,why do you think hes so jolly...

Click to expand...

and why do you think those elves are always happy and singing?? lol

Good effort on this thread!
Am I to understand that your visual assay of "goodness" is based on motility?
I too feel that movement is cool, but I have no reason believe it is "better".
Isn't it likely that many microbes have the ability to grow or abandon flagella based on environment?
Larger and more complex organisms are at times visible, but their presence is often brief and I have never seen dead bodies laying about, so I don't have a clue on details of this "population evolution".
Keep up the good work. (And reports)

PS your efforts to maintain a stable distribution of microbes through batch to batch inoculation is excellent!

HydroRocks said:

I WISH I could somehow transfer the "smell" of a evolved tea......the pics do not do it justice.......it makes you want to drink it almost!!....

Click to expand...

ummmmm....

ALMOST is the key word here. LOL.

Dunge - That is a most excellent point/question. The answer as far as if it is "better" is for sure still under debate pending further research and results......for one, I need to be able to repeat the process easily, and so far, that has not been accomplished just yet but I do feel it is possible.

As we all know different conditions and environments will alter the outcome 100% of the time. Meaning what works for me, my water source and my environment all the way down to average humidity which all plays a role....may not work for you.

With that said, all ACT's are very similar meaning they all need a specific water temp to thrive, a food source...ect..ect..so by getting all the factors that we can within acceptable ranges, the outcome should be close to the same as well.

But in all honesty, there is no such thing as bad tea really.......the main point to this evolving tea project is to reach concentration levels and "purity" that is normally not achieved with "normal" brewing procedures.

You are also increasing the diversity of species.......some may or may not be useful to the plants directly, but the idea behind it is that some of the more evolved species will assist in the processing of organic compounds, and most all of these species produce a by-product that the plants can use and need, i.e. proteins, amino acids, ect....

Slightly off topic, below is a link to a video I thought was really good and provides LOTS of information we can all use.....

Description:
After years of back-breaking toil in ground ravaged by the effects of man-made growing systems, Paul Gautschi has discovered a taste of what God intended for mankind in the garden of Eden. Some of the vital issues facing agriculture today include soil preparation, fertilization, irrigation, weed control, pest control, crop rotation, and PH issues. None of these issues exist in the unaltered state of nature or in Paul's gardens and orchards.
"Back to Eden" invites you to take a walk with Paul as he teaches you sustainable organic growing methods that are capable of being implemented in diverse climates around the world.

OK...........first off I think some general and basic information is in order about brewing a tea. This is needed to accommodate anyone just starting out in making tea's as we have a mix of experience usually found on a forum, and if your in between a rookie and a expert, the following information should "connect some dots" for you hopefully.....for the experts out there, hang with me and enjoy a very brief "refresher" course of the basics and I promise it will get interesting really quick......

After looking at the giant pile of cluttered notes and fragmented data that I have collected on this project over the years, I think a faster better way to go would be to just start a new batch from scratch and detail the steps, procedures taken, and the time frames or brew times....

This will be better and much more "coherent" anyhow as I can include all the revisions that have been made along the way to make things easier or to improve upon the procedure itself.

For one thing, I have noticed that it is damn near impossible if not impossible to sterilize plastic or wood......just to many damn places for bacteria and spores to hide and escape the chemical agents used to clean and sterilize and the material itself is to fragile......something totally "inert" is ideal.

To over come this obstacle, glass has been used in place of plastic wherever applicable or feasible. Glass is super easy to sanitize and you can use almost anything you want to do it with where as with plastic your are very limited on what you can use to clean and sterilize with....nothing abrasive or that will scratch can be used.....another problem with plastic is leeching.....

Glass however presents its own set of problems or challenges I should say. More on this later....

It is important to be "aware" of these possible pitfalls so to speak when your making any ACT type tea and especially when choosing your equipment and setup. It can be as simple as a plastic 2 dollar bucket, air stone and pump, or elaborate enough to require very serious and expensive lab gear to maintain and operate. The limit of potential health benefits to your plants is also non existent...there really is no limit to the potential that can be gained.

Going back to basics.......
One experiment we have done is to take just plain tap water and a air pump and air stone....if your tap water is "decent" (meaning it does not already contain a bunch of snarly organism's, otherwise known as "the bad guys" waiting to spring into action), the air pump will pull the bacteria and spores from the air and into your bucket. In a few days time you should have a ACT tea that is ready to go to work.

To further this experiment and try to identify what type of bacteria can be cultured using this method, the starting water was filtered and sanitized, and then glass slides are sampled to verify no living biology is present, then the experiment starts by introducing the air stone and pump and ran for 72 hours. At this point more samples are looked at for identifying and forming a "base line" set of concentration levels and species diversity. This is based on a number scale from 0 to 15, and then in sub sets of incremental samples are taken, usually at one hour intervals and labeled with a additional rating scale applied to the sub sets of data, i.e 0.1 - 0.2

This continues until you end up with a scale rating or "value" (number) that will relate the concentration levels, specie diversity and identification, and a "purity" rating. I plan to refine these methods in the future to include assays of content to identify amino acids, proteins and specific ion types. This would just be a extension really that would express with a numerical value that will relate directly to the concentration level of each element.

The ultimate goal here is to create a numerical based scale or rating that will basically tell you how "active" your tea is, or how much "stuff" is being created by the biology in the solution would be another way to express this value. The "stuff' would be things like the amino acids, and proteins that are produced as by products of the biology present in the solution which is measured over a time period (brew time).

This will also help to make sure that your tea is brewing the "right" biology (the good guys).

I should mention as a side note here that this testing actually brought about a entire new theory on "water memory" as the evidence for this was staggering IMHO. It seems the water can retain the memory or instructional sets that the once present bacteria follows to multiply and thrive building colonies of NEW bacteria.......AFTER the bacteria is removed from the water......what is even more strange is that it will ONLY work if there is a presence of a certain frequency.....and guess what that frequency is when measured???? Yup.....7.83HZ, the very same frequency that is emitted by the Earth. Some call it the "Earth's Pulse" or "heart beat", Science calls it "Shumann Resonance"

The more testing done, the more it seems that no life of any kind can exist without this frequency being present......and 8 plus years later....still testing this theory and running experiments.......the truth is indeed stranger than fiction it would seem....the question then became, "well if biology can not live without the frequency of 7.83HZ being present, are there other frequencies maybe that could "help" or "speed up" the process that bacteria performs"??

What scares me about these type discoveries is that today our world is filled with the frequencies of wireless routers, and cell phone towers.......we are bathed in it at all times....stats like by the time a child of today reaches 21 years of age, they have spent on average 10 YEARS worth of time on the phone.......is alarming to me. You can not see it, but if you could we would all be walking around in this DENSE THICK FOG of microwaves.....

I mean really though....what could possibly be bad about holding a device that transmits and receives MICROWAVES right up against your BRAIN which we know operates at the same frequency that the earth does, which is 7.83HZ using Alpha Waves?

Knowing what you just read would anyone say or feel that we, and the world we live in could be considered as "Resonance Beings"? Or dependent upon certain frequencies for our very existence and survival?

What could possibly go wrong then with filling our entire environment with microwaves from the increasing number of cell phone towers and cell phone users everywhere??? I mean at first, there were just a couple of towers and a few users, now a days, who does NOT have a cell phone on them and near them 24/7??? Basically if you have any signal at all on your phone, your being bathed in the microwaves, and so is your brain.

Sorry for rambling and getting so far off topic and off subject......

Up next will be the starting list of ingredients and for the first experiment we will use a simple bucket, air stone and air pump.

Then the second experiment we will use a vortex design brewer instead of the bucket.

The Third Experiment we will go back to the bucket and air pump method, but instead of plastic, we will use all glass down to the silica based glass air stone. The tubing used is of lab and chemical grade (Silicone), and it is VERY expensive, FYI!!

The Fourth experiment we will start again with the bucket design, but this time we will add "frequency treated water" to the mix, that we call for testing purposes, "Memory Water".

The Fifth and final experiment will use the vortex design with a glass chamber, memory water, and we will add a "magnetic field array" component composed of alternating magnetic polarized fields, i.e. North and South poles that will alternate.

I think you will notice a VERY surprising and different outcome that is generally expected. That I can assure you of......

We will of course be taking samples for scoping during different timed intervals (brew times), as well as incorporating the rating scale for a final analysis of the samples taken.

And finally, our evolving tea project, which will be a identical setup of the first method tested (the bucket and air pump) and will run along side the additional experiments described.

I will more than likely start a separate thread and detail the evolving tea only in this thread so nobody gets confused......

Experiment One -Basic Description & Setup: In this experiment we will use a plastic 5 gallon bucket, an air pump and air stone, and Bio-Filter. The equipment details are below.

This will be the "Evolving Tea Project" which will evolve the tea over a period of around 60 to 90 days. At the end of this experiment, I will demonstrate a "alternate" method that will basically produce near the same results but in a much shorter amount of time. It is important to grasp the fundamental concepts of the "long way" before attempting the "short way", otherwise you will more than likely waste 14 days of time and effort and some wasted product to go along with that as well.

Bio-Filter- The one shown here for simplicity is for a aquarium and is made by "Tetra" and cost around 20 dollars. I will show a DIY method later as well for making a larger more efficient and effective bio-filter. Several members here already have posted some really killer plans for a bio-filter as well so I suggest you check those if your interested in building your own.

This one shown here has a pre-filter and a charcoal filter bag and creates a nice waterfall effect.

Next is the air pump and air stone, the air stone is a 4 inch stone and the pump is a commercial series 35 watt air pump.

To step the air hose size up to avoid creating to much back pressure you can cheat by using 1/4 inch piece of hose first over the nipple and then the 3/8 size hose over top as shown in the picture.

You want to fill your 5 gallon bucket with about 3.5 gallons of water. For this experiment we will use RO filtered water that has been pre-treated with a Corona Ozone Generator at the rate of 3 minutes per gallon.

Water Temperature- Is very important. To warm, you make vinegar....to cold, you make sqwat....

The starting temperature for new batches when you are adding biology in stasis is around 75F degrees. This temp is kept for about the first 12 to 24 hours depending on the activity. Visual signs like foaming can be very misleading, and in a proper brewing tea you will only get a little foam, especially after the first 24 hours.......this is where taking samples is key.

After the first 24 hours, you will begin to lower temps very slowly around 1 to 3 degrees a day down to around 68F to 70F with a "mature" tea.

The water is kept in holding tanks while being treated with Ozone to boost the "Redox Potential" as well as sterilize the water. We end up with 0PPM, 7.0pH water ready for use.

We test often to monitor ozone levels as to much will produce unwanted by products like bromate for example. This is a result of the ozone reacting with source water that contains bromide, you need to test your source for bromide if you plan to incorporate coronal ozone water treatment.

You should always have your water tested anyhow.

Pictured also is the 6 stage RO filter as well as the TDS dual meter which monitors input and output of the RO water (before and after filtering).

Our incoming water is around 106PPM and outgoing is 2PPM.

You want to start by taking at least 10 samples before you add anything to your water. Then take a additional 10 samples after you add your inputs...the more samples you take, the more accurate your results will be. As you get more practice, you will quickly know what what to look for. At first it will seem difficult and take forever trying to focus the scope ect....do not get discouraged, it will get easier.

We will cover taking samples and the schedules for frequency as well as brew times in detail a bit further along.

You will want to setup a work bench to have an area that you can keep clean, and handle your samples. It does not need to be anything fancy and relative small space will accommodate.

And of course no bench is complete without a crystal ball that tells the future......:)

Continued......you guys can jump in at any time with questions, comments, whatever.....

Water Temp Continued - The reason we start warmer is to try and help jump start the biology that is in a "carrier" product that is usually a clay or talc powder that is insoluble in water. Meaning it will not ever dissolve in water.

After jump starting the sleeping microbes in the warmer water temps, you want to now let them munch down on the food you supplied them in the form of sugars and carbs. We will detail microbe food specifically.

To get them to do this, you want to drop the water temp about 1 to 3 degrees, which will increase the amount of dissolved oxygen the water is capable of holding......with enough movement, you can usually reach saturation points easily, especially in smaller containers.

So lets fast forward a bit in time now and the microbes should be very active and have multiplied considerably so it is time to slow things down a bit so the food supply is not exhausted as well as over population which will cause them to cannibalize themselves if left unattended......

The easiest way to do this is again to slowly lower the water temperature down to around 68F to 70F degrees. This will do two important things we need..... slow the activity levels considerably and also it will begin to weed out the weaker microbes that are to sensitive to environment changes. It is Darwin's theory "selective breeding" for those interested in researching this further. The second thing these lower temps do is provide higher saturation points for the water, meaning it can hold more oxygen at the lower temps, to supply a very large population of half sleeping microbe armies......now ready for training and combat.

Excellent work HydroRocks. Makes me want to speed up that microscope purchase lol I'm running a vortex brewer and so far been pouring about 8 cups of my teas back into the new batch. thanks for the advice. That bio-filter looks real nice. wonder how i would attach one to my vortex?? Had a huge bio-filter when i had my reef tank.

Thanks Dirk.....your last name isnt Diggler is it? :) Just got through watching Boogie Nights......man I forgot how funny/good that movie was....

Anyhow, my fav setup is for sure the Vortex, for that system you would want to use a different style bio-filter.....actually I saw plans here in the DIY section for one...you would just match the size of your PVC (or larger) pipe, and make the bio-filter using some PVC pipe.

This style bio-filter is more "efficient" I think than any other style.....you would take a piece of PVC about one to 2 feet long, cap the ends, then you run a 1 inch size PVC tube inside the 3 or 4 inch PVC pipe you started with that was one to two feet long.......this is to create a "channel" inside the pipe to force the water coming in from one end to the other end of the pvc pipe, and then for the water to get "out", it must pass through the mesh/filter material inside the pvc pipe and out the same end the water entered from.......

The "body" or main chamber of the pvc pipe is filled with a "filter" material that can be anything from sponge like scrub pads, to foam, just make sure what ever you use will NOT break down by the solution running through the filter......

PS- I have some other tips and tricks that you can use for the Vortex, it is by far the most efficient way/design to brew tea IMHO.......I will cover using the vortex in much more detail in a upcoming experiment.

Update Evolving Tea Project - Day 2

This is what the tea looks like after about 14 to 18 hours of brewing time. I included a shot from Day 1 so you can easily see the difference as the tea progresses and matures.

One of the pics was taken with the air pumped stopped so you can "see" a little better how clear the tea is becoming......it starts out looking a little like like chocolate milk for the most part, and then ends up being a super clear liquid that has a very slight tint of yellow to it when completed......and that AWESOME smell..........my favorite part, the smell test!

One thing to remember is that we still have the "carrier" product that has settled mostly to the bottom of the bucket, but a little will still float in the solution from the air pump and air stone. This carrier product will be filtered away in the following steps to come, no worries.

As the biology and the microbes multiply and processes the organic matter in the solution, it will continue to become even more clear and pure as time progresses......

We will now begin lowering the temps just a little bit from 75F to 74F-73F over the next 12 to 14 hours, and then continue to drop the temp down to 72F degrees and will stop there for the next phase of progression.

It is super important to do this drop in temp very slowly or you will shock and kill what you have up to this point......now is also a great time to take many samples over the next 12 hours every hour to two hour intervals. Take at least 10 each for this phase.

I also included a picture of the actual bucket we use and something you might want to consider. I am showing the experiment with a cheap black 5 gallon bucket for simplicity and proof of concept, but a square shaped bucket as shown that will hold 10 to 12 gallons is ideal and a lot easier to work with in general.

From this point on, I am going to just transfer what is in the 5 gallon bucket to this square bucket to continue this experiment. You can use a 5 gallon round one if your on a budget or whatever the case may be. It will work.

I would highly suggest that if your going to be making tea on a constant basis, that you get the proper rating of plastic (approved for food grade usage) in your gear.......these products are however extremely expensive especially when compared to "regular" type plastic buckets like what is found at a Lowes for example.....

If you only make tea every once in a while it is not needed, just make sure and use a new bucket with say every other new batch....at 2 to 3 bucks a pop, it should still be affordable.