My Dad wants to know if you can make a second batch of compost tea from the cow manure or should you discard the manure after the first batch and start over with fresh manure?
And, he is making his own liquid seaweed by placing 1/2 lb dried kelp in a stocking and soaking in a 5 gallon bucket of water. Is there any way to determine the strength of the solution he is now making?
Thanks for any help.

nuclearduck, When I make compost tea, I stuff one leg of a panty hose,
with the ingredients and tie the top. I use this at least two, or sometimes three times. In between times, I wire it up the compost bin to dry out. After two or three times, I remove the ingredients and in the compost it goes. So yes, you can use the manure more then once. My compost tea seems to be just as strong the second or third time I use it. Just remember to aerate it before using it. I do mine about 30 - 45 minutes prior to putting in the pump up sprayer. I strain it as it is added.
Hope this answers your question. I must thank Kathe Kitchens for convincing me to foliar feed the garden and trees. They do so much better when fed. If I have a lot of energy, I will folair feed more then once a week.

First of all you should never use fresh manure in making tea. This is literally a case of garbage in equals garbage out only with tea you have 1,000 times more garbage going out. The use of fresh manure is absolutely NOT condoned by anyone serious about their tea. The reason is you will be multiplying all the bad microbes that live in the fresh stuff.

Manure should be composted for weeks, months, to a year before using it. When it smells so good that you wouldn't mind sleeping on it, then it's ready to use for tea. If you have access to fresh manure, then you also should have access to composted manure. Again, it should smell absolutely fabulous before it's ready.

On your second question, assessing the quality of homemade tea is a major problem. You could easily be spraying colored water with nothing but dead microbes in it, or it could be a tea of pathogenic (disease causing) microbes. This is a big problem the whole tea issue.

David,

I know this was an old post, but I am new. So I am hoping there is some new technology out there to test you tea. Has anything been developed yet? Also, there was a mention of using kelp and soaking itin water to make a liquid seaweed solution. Does that really work or produce an effective seaweed ammendment? Sounds like it would be a lot cheaper if it works.

Thanks

Tea testing requires a microscope. You will be counting the numbers of the different species of microbes.

Soaking kelp doesn't make liquid seaweed. You buy the concentrated liquid seaweed and then dilute it. You could buy the powdered seaweed and add water but that stuff costs more than gold.