I used already brewed coffee grinds to pH Down. What would happen?

[ice minus]

Hi there

We make minimum 2-4 espresso per day in our house between me and the wife. I heard coffee is acidic so just for fun I stuck my pH pen in a litre of water and added already brewed leftover grinds to bring the water from 8.1 to 6.5

Then I ran the concoction through a chemex filter to remove all of the actual solids

And I am left with a brown transparent liquid with a pH of 6.5

What would happen if I dumped it on a plant in veg? Or used it as a starter liquid to a quick castings tea for example?

I'm assuming it has some nitrogen but doubt it would be enough to be instant toxic. Or would I be wrong?

I didn't feed anything lol but I have too many plants in veg right now, maybe I should sacrifice one as a test dummy

 

[goingrey]

It will be fine. Top dressing with used coffee grounds is an old "grandma trick".

 

[moose eater]

Limited value as 'organic' or 'natural' ph down, but it is acidic and will help a bit.

The used grounds have a limited amount of nitrogen, too, but more if you use unused coffee... not that many would use such a spendy item as a soil amendment.

 

[exploziv]

The solids are great for compost as well!

 

[moose eater]

The solids are great for compost as well!

All of our coffee grounds and the unbleached Melita paper filters go to the compost bin out behind the house.

 

[ice minus]

We "produce" up to 60g per day of brewed coffee grinds, if I could use the grinds themselves for any purpose that would be amazing! Without composting though

I don't have a worm bin or compost area yet sadly. I would do worm bin my garage but I'd assume they'd freeze solid in the winter and not able to bring it indoors

 

[goingrey]

Bokashi bucket?

 

[Jellyfish]

Your plants won't be able to sleep at night!

 

[ice minus]

Bokashi bucket?

Is this hard to do? I'd start right away with the right directions

 

[ice minus]

Your plants won't be able to sleep at night!

That makes 2 of us

 

[goingrey]

Is this hard to do? I'd start right away with the right directions

I haven't tried it because I use a big insulated outdoor composter instead but it seems very simple.

 

[moose eater]

Is this hard to do? I'd start right away with the right directions

You can make your own bokashi bran or order it online. If you research whose product is better reviewed, you might benefit from that.

It essentially speeds up the breakdown of your organic material in composting. I add a bit of it (bokashi bran with limited EM1) to my organic soilless mixes.

Note that it will add 'some' sulfur to your mixes, and molasses is often a part of the bokashi bran.

 

[ice minus]

I have a half used bag of this stuff:

Bokashi Pro-Gro | Black Swallow Living Soils, Brantford ON

We are very excited to have discovered this product recently. Regular bokashi is mainly made out of wheat bran that has had a synergistic combination of photosynthetic bacteria, lactic acid bacteria and yeast grown on its surface, and then dried.

blackswallowsoil.com

But I'm guessing this might be the already finished product instead of the starter?

Or can I use this?

It was expensive as hell and I never noticed it do anything significant, one of my more wasteful purchases tbh UNLESS, and it's likely, I simply didn't use enough

 

[moose eater]

I have a half used bag of this stuff:

Bokashi Pro-Gro | Black Swallow Living Soils, Brantford ON

We are very excited to have discovered this product recently. Regular bokashi is mainly made out of wheat bran that has had a synergistic combination of photosynthetic bacteria, lactic acid bacteria and yeast grown on its surface, and then dried.

blackswallowsoil.com

But I'm guessing this might be the already finished product instead of the starter?

Or can I use this?

It was expensive as hell and I never noticed it do anything significant, one of my more wasteful purchases tbh UNLESS, and it's likely, I simply didn't use enough

That appears to be a finished bokashi bran product.

I don't use a whole lot of the stuff.

The EM1 (which is 'sort of' referenced on your product's label) is often added when making your own bokashi bran, but for the hassle and time, if you're not treating a whole field, a little bit goes a long way.

It's essentially adding microbes that will speed the breakdown of any organics in your mixes.

Again, it carries molasses and, thereby, increased sulfur. The only reason I add that tidbit is that when I was looking for ways to reduce sulfur in my mixes, as the numbers were WAY high, this was one suspect that I chose to target and reduced a bit in volume/ratio.


**Not all products are the same quality.

**I add a shitload of organics to my mixes, thus my interest in expediting their composting, due to my frequent/intermittent short-sightedness and lethargy where timing some of my mixes is involved and giving (or not giving) them sufficient time to 'evolve' before putting them to use.

 

[amanda88]

Hi there

We make minimum 2-4 espresso per day in our house between me and the wife. I heard coffee is acidic so just for fun I stuck my pH pen in a litre of water and added already brewed leftover grinds to bring the water from 8.1 to 6.5

Then I ran the concoction through a chemex filter to remove all of the actual solids

And I am left with a brown transparent liquid with a pH of 6.5

What would happen if I dumped it on a plant in veg? Or used it as a starter liquid to a quick castings tea for example?

I'm assuming it has some nitrogen but doubt it would be enough to be instant toxic. Or would I be wrong?

I didn't feed anything lol but I have too many plants in veg right now, maybe I should sacrifice one as a test dummy

coffee at a ph of 6.5? I'd go check again coffee is most acidic,
I back up my ph tool with $5.00 swimming pool ph strips at any 711

for me they take too long to break down but I do confess to chucking them on the lawn, as a cheap nute, my soils are very clay like

 

[amanda88]

We "produce" up to 60g per day of brewed coffee grinds, if I could use the grinds themselves for any purpose that would be amazing! Without composting though

I don't have a worm bin or compost area yet sadly. I would do worm bin my garage but I'd assume they'd freeze solid in the winter and not able to bring it indoors

here in Sweden a buddy has rigged a solar heater to the interior of his compost bin, he only used it in winter, the deal is to keep enough green in the bin so it heats itself, he prooved it to us by cooking an egg it took an hour ...lol

 

[exploziv]

Coffe might be acidic but after brewing it is indeed almost neutral. It is also a mild N source, it won't overfert plants but for sure will tune the nutrients ratios a bit in favor of N. Could be ok in veg. I would be a bit worried about chemicals it might contain from sprays and unregulated fertilisers used in poor countries, but since you are drinking it already I guess we are past that.

 

[ice minus]

coffee at a ph of 6.5? I'd go check again coffee is most acidic,
I back up my ph tool with $5.00 swimming pool ph strips at any 711

for me they take too long to break down but I do confess to chucking them on the lawn, as a cheap nute, my soils are very clay like

Not once brewed, is my understanding! But even if it was, I didn't mean to imply the coffee itself was 6.5 but merely that I can add grinds to continually lower the pH until 6.5 is reached. If I kept adding more, it very possibly would keep dropping indeed, I am unsure!

Coffe might be acidic but after brewing it is indeed almost neutral. It is also a mild N source, it won't overfert plants but for sure will tune the nutrients ratios a bit in favor of N. Could be ok in veg. I would be a bit worried about chemicals it might contain from sprays and unregulated fertilisers used in poor countries, but since you are drinking it already I guess we are past that.

I was gonna say the same thing - I've already been consuming it every single morning like clockwork, usually 2 times a day even haha!

Thank you for confirming the other things I've wondered about, too!

 

[ice minus]

I am here to check back in! and with a strange observation that is ready to be disspelled!

I don't have any reliable data yet and most likely here to just report a fluke occourance, BUT, I had a set of 5" pots with some moms I was keeping.. and they were starting to get some pest thing .. (I'd take the plant out of the tent to water and I'd end up seeing a small little tiny jumping hopping fruit fly looking thing or two either trying to escape the watering and onto the table, or simply trying to hide around the container sides. if anyone can help ID what it might be thatd be dope too .. they also could fly for a very short period of time but not much by the looks of it)

So today I had some more pucks piling up headed for the organics bin and decided to revisit this with a brand new pH pen.



It worked, again.

Gallon of water to small mixing bucket. I had base hard water source of pH around 8.2 and was able to continually add sprinkles of espresso grinds until it reached my target of 6.6 pH. As a cool bonus, apparently this will also (I've read elsewhere on here) take care of chloramines as you can tradtionally throw a handful of dirt into the water for a same effect (It needs an organic matter to simply bind to it's been said)

Then, I watered a bunch of the plants with the espresso slurry 6.6 pH water which I usually use chemical pH down to achieve 6.6 pH instead

And strangely enough, I think I have witnessed the few "gnats" or whatever immediately run away out of the pots, where I promptly squished them to death.

Figured this would be short lived but I repeated the process a few times and even now have what looks to be espresso grinds mixed into the top layer of soil, and I swear to god, I think they either hate this stuff and it deters them, or the grinds themselves are hurting them?

I'm quite sure I must be wrong about this as I've seen the opposite warnings about trying to incorporate used coffee grinds, that they can ENCOURAGE gnats, but strangely enough it seems to have helped so far instead of hinder!

These grinds are from a Niche Zero and are so fine they easily passed through the TeaLab Compost Tea brew bag I originally tried to contain them in

 

[exploziv]

Try it with water. They escape from it too. Their misson is to lie a lots of eggs in their short adult life. Can't do that if they drown..