Please answer this question, I just have to know

[pointer80]

Hello all, My friends brother was telling me about His buddy making this "quick compost", He said he uses beer so I did some research and found a couple recipes where they use ammonia and beer I believe. Ammonia is not organic so why would you do this? I can't be very good right? Doesn't compost have to age and heat up to work(hot compost I mean). Isn't ammonia a cleaner? I would think it would not be good for all the microbes etc? Thanks for any input.

 

[Emilya Green]

I am sorry to inform you that your brother's friend doesn't know what he is talking about. Ammonia and/or beer would be harmful to the microlife that you are trying to grow in the compost. This advice is just as bad as those who add another step and promote peeing on the compost pile. This will not work either, and all you will end up with either of these strategies is a smelly plot of dead sludge.

 

[pointer80]

I am sorry to inform you that your brother's friend doesn't know what he is talking about. Ammonia and/or beer would be harmful to the microlife that you are trying to grow in the compost. This advice is just as bad as those who add another step and promote peeing on the compost pile. This will not work either, and all you will end up with either of these strategies is a smelly plot of dead sludge.

I figured as much. I have been making compost for a number of years the old fashion way. Why do some people think they have to find a faster or lazier way to do things? lol

 

[SmokingWings]

@pointer80 , I just have to ask a quick question. Why is ammonia not organic? It is made from methane which is the result of a natural organic process. It is used in cleaning solutions but I don't know how much cleaning it does or if the cleaning is done by other ingredients. I believe ammonia is naturally occurring in urine, both human and other animals. Once the urine gets old the ammonia smell gets strong. You might notice the smell in barns or places where animals are housed.

But one reason to rethink ammonia is that it can and has been used to purify water which, I figure, means that it will kill off bacteria. I do not think that we would want to take the chance that it would destroy beneficial bacteria in the compost pile.

@Emilya ... at the moment I cannot agree with your assessment on not using beer on compost piles. Many years ago I read articles on using beer to get a compost pile going. Might have been in Organic Gardening & Farming or possibly one of the trade journals I would come across every now and then. Not sure that it would destroy the bacteria in a compost pile; instead the yeasts should help get the bacteria started reproducing fast if in a new pile. Problems would be pouring to much beer onto a pile, especially one that is already going strong and saturating the organic material. Then I think the beer yeasts would cause the pile to sour. I would not pour beer onto a compost pile that is finished cooking and ready to be mixed into a super-soil or potting soil mix.

I am back. I noticed a youtube video or two about both beer and ammonia in compost piles. I did not look at them since I can speed read an article faster than watch a 15 minute video. A quick look at articles on using just beer with no ammonia mentioned and I did not notice any negative articles, at least not yet. Since I cut back on my beer consumption there just is not enough left over to try. With the old codgers I invite over some of them are more than happy to have a free beer from my fridge no matter how stale or flat it is. Looks like beer & compost pile experiments are out of the question for the time being.

Carry on and have a great day.

 

[bobrown14]

I figured as much. I have been making compost for a number of years the old fashion way. Why do some people think they have to find a faster or lazier way to do things? lol

Quality in quality out.

There are no short cuts. To get good compost you have to pay attention to inputs.

Beer and ammonia, well sure you can add them to your bin. They will compost just like any other input. Lots of people put paper in their bins as well. OK.

You want quality pay attention to your inputs. Spruce up the bin with some alfalfa meal or dandelions or kelp meal or any of the green manures like Comfrey. Heck one of the best things you can add to the compost bin is a cup or 2 of rock dust. The worms will thank you later. It will help them digest their food.

Beer best to drink.
Ammonia = a sign your compost is anaerobic = the wrong bacteria and some stinky stink to go with. Compost bins should be a little buggy and a little wormy but not smelly.

 

[Conradino23]

Ammonia is non-organic in the sense that it doesn’t contain any carbon, but neither does nitrate, which is used by all organic growers... yes your compost contains it too as it’s a final product of nitrification, which is a process of converting ammonia to nitrate by bacteria. Both are biological. Ammonia is a result of a breakdown of urea, main ingredient of animal/human piss and although it can be synthesised on an industrial scale it’s a naturally occurring form of nitrogen.

 

[SmokingWings]

I figured as much. I have been making compost for a number of years the old fashion way. Why do some people think they have to find a faster or lazier way to do things? lol

Time is money. The people who have to deal with all those huge piles of yard waste need a way to speed up the process or it could end up costing more in just paying property taxes while they wait for a finished product that they can sell to recuperate their operating expenses.

When I think about it some, I realize that the old fashioned way is to just let that one season's worth of raw organic material just lay where it falls. The new fangled way is to pile it up as much as possible and hope the decomposition takes place by next spring.

Another way of looking at it. The old fashioned way works just great. We know that. After reading a current thread on the differences between the various hydroponic methods of growing and the different soil methods it is apparent that there are people who appreciate a bit of experimentation. Why not experiment with composting?

Who knows, one day people will be living on the Moon or on Mars and they will be terra-forming their immediate environment so they can grow food and create a breathable atmosphere, even under a habitat dome. I suppose that they will slowly be successful because it was the hobbyist who kept playing around with the science behind speeding up composting.

That might be simplifying things but I feel a lot of the science in growing foods and flowers started because someone was standing there staring at their crop. Slowly they realized a better way or an easier way or a faster way of doing what had to be done to get the results they wanted.

Good luck.

 

[bobrown14]

Call me "old fashioned". Lol

There are no shortcuts, well maybe there are. Mother nature has a few I'm sure you've seen, like fire, wind, rain.

A few classics.

They all make good fast compost.

If you wanna heat up/speed up your compost pile - easy enough. Add in some Green manure like comfrey. Wait about a week and there you have it.