The inimitable Bob “Amigo” Cantisano of OrganicAg Advisors and Aeolia Organics of North San Juan, California, presented a design for a compost tea maker that costs just a few dollars (plus an air compressor), and is yielding compost teas with microbe counts that are higher than the counts from expensive compost tea makers. Here is a rough description of it. (Disclaimer: this description based on Amigo’s diagram and explanation at the dinner table is limited in its details. If you want to make one you should contact Amigo for more details at orgamigo@jps.net).
Run a hose into the bottom of a barrel (i.e. 55 gallon drum),and there connect it to a soaker hose. Connect the other end to an air compressor. Fill the barrel with water to roughly 3/4 capacity. Don’t forget to aerate the chlorine away. Securely attach some shade cloth (cheap and effective mesh) around the top of the barrel in such a way that when compost is put into it, the aerated water bubbles up and soaks the compost but doesn’t submerge it. The water level should be just below the sagging shade cloth with compost. That’s it. Amigo uses 10:1 weight to weight of water to compost, or 30-35 lbs compost per 45 gallons of water (about what a 55 gallon drum would hold for this setup). The soaker hose, according to Amigo, makes a fine air bubbler.
From:
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/talking_shop/1103/wa_tilth1.shtml
Compost Tea Maker
I was planning on trying this with worm castings and using a fish tank bubbler in a five gallon bucket.