What is Compost Tea?
If you’re looking at this page, you probably already have some understanding of compost tea and the importance of microbes in soil health. What we’re talking about here is compost tea as defined by Dr. Elaine Ingham’s SoilFoodWeb school.
– It starts with good quality, microbiologically complete compost.
– Next, you extract that compost, washing the microbes out of the compost with water.
– Then this liquid is added to the brewer, which has already been running for an hour or two to oxygenate the water.
– Foods are then added to the brew, nourishing the microorganisms so that they can reproduce.
– This reproduction follows an exponential growth curve, meaning that maintaining the tea aerobic at all times requires constant aeration; the compost tea brewer must be properly designed to keep up with these demands.
The SolVif Pulse-Flow
Compost Tea Brewer
Components:
The construction of the SolVif Compost Tea Brewer can be simplified down to three essential elements:
A conical-bottom stainless steel tank
Designed for ideal microbial suspension and movement.
An air injection system
Featuring a side channel blower and a variable frequency drive (VFD) to precisely control airflow.
Zero-plastic plumbing
EPDM hoses and DIN 32676 Clamp stainless steel fittings (304/316).
Zero-Plastic Compost Tea
The Zero-Plastic Compost Tea Brewer
Designed with zero plastic, the SolVif Pulse-Flow Brewer is made entirely from:
• Stainless steel
• EPDM rubber
• Silicone
• Industrial-grade components built for continuous operation
Its open-top design and clamp fittings allow for easy cleaning.
Food-grade fittings ensure full hygiene, and all seals and joints are standard, inexpensive, and simple to replace.
The brewer’s shape and proportions are specifically designed to create ideal compost tea brewing conditions.
SolVif is focused on providing effective, reliable, large-scale compost tea brewers customized to your needs. Brewer effective volumes range from 300 liters to 9000 liters. Let’s discuss your needs together!
Compost Extraction Without Microplastics
Compost Tea requires Compost Extract as a starting material. Extraction can be done in various ways and is limited only by creativity and practical needs. It is often achieved using a “bag” method: massaging compost inside a mesh bag immersed in water.
However, if this bag is made of any type of plastic (including nylon) it inevitably creates microplastics.
SolVif can provide a custom stainless steel basket for compost extraction, which can be used inside the brewer or in any other tank or container.
SolVif Pulse-Flow Brewer technology
The SolVif Pulse-Flow Brewer combines central air injection at the bottom of the cone with external expansion airlifts. When the system is properly tuned, the airlifts operate in a slug-churn flow regime, with medium-velocity discharge above the water surface. Both airlift discharges are oriented in the same rotational direction.
After approximately 10 minutes of operation, a stable vortex forms, driven by the tangential momentum of the airlift discharges. Simultaneously, the central tank connection at the bottom of the cone draws water into the air manifold while permitting rhythmic pulses of air-water mixture to rise centrally in the tank.
As these pulses ascend in the tank, the shear forces of the rotating vortex break up the slugs, dispersing them into smaller bubbles. This vortex-shear interaction increases the gas-liquid interfacial area and extends bubble residence time, significantly enhancing oxygen transfer compared to conventional bubble column brewers.
About me:
Matthew Kling
I’ve been living in France since 2001, initially working in IT, but for ten years was simultaneously growing organic grapes on 6 hectares of vineyards and making wine. I was constantly challenged by vine health and yield problems, but I didn’t have good
answers to what was wrong or how to fix it.
I became more and more committed to understanding how soils function and how we can rebuild them. After finding Dr. Elaine Ingham’s SoilFoodWeb school, I developed the knowledge and tools for soil analysis, an understanding of how microbes and fungi interact with plants, and how to help these ecosystems flourish.
Qualifications:
I am a Soil Food Web Certified Lab Technician. In 2023, I built my first compost tea brewer for my own use, since I was unable to find a high-quality, zero-plastic brewer.
By 2025, the limitations of the SoilFoodWeb standards for compost tea brewers became apparent to me, and I began digger deeper into how to effectively maintain aerobic conditions for large-scale brewers.
At the same time, my SoilFoodWeb colleagues started demanding that I fabricate brewers for them and their clients, and that’s how SolVif was born: out of necessity, out of passion, and out of a desire to contribute to real soil regeneration and plant health.
Ready to take action?
Contact us today for tailored composting solutions with SolVif.
Our project
Testimonials
Our clients talk about their experience with SolVif and its professional and environmentally conscious approach.
I had a meeting with my mentor, she was honestly surprised by the quality of the compost tea, it is not normal at all to see such aerobic communities all through the process. What impresses me the most is how the aggregation develops, you don’t see aggregates for 6h but then you begin to see more and more develop until everything has this fulvic, aggregated shape and tone.
That alone, and 500g of rock dust quite literally transmutating, justifies this machine, but the microbe diversity is really something different to regular teas. I’ve never seen that with other brewers.
Dani Iraberri Pérez
Founder,
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