Old Beer

My SIL left 2 bottles of beer here in the summer. I'm assuming they are too old to drink and would like them out of my fridge. Is it okay to pour these in my compost?

Absulutely. I even make a fertilizer brew using beer! It has a lot of B vitamins and good yeasties.

Thanks, out it goes!

I can see myself in my local grocery store, grabbing a 6 pack for the plants!!!!!!
If my pastor happened to walk by, I can easily explain..."It's not what you think..it's for the garden!"

LOL.....good luck convincing him!!

Heaven, that's funny, I want the beer out of the fridge so the pastor can come for dinner, hehe. He would know it wasn't mine, but I'd hate him to think badly of my DH, grinning.

Well Cathy and Velnita.... be filled with the Spirit!!
Merry Christmas ;)

Well, you could taste it first, or I could volunteer.........grin...

Cathy (doccat)...don't you think you'd be safer with O'doul's?? Lolol!

That's a long way to drive to have 2 old beers. With the cost of gas you could buy a whole bunch of beer and stay home, lol.

Wouldn't it be better just to buy the hops (it's a plant), and make up large batches of homemade beer----uh....just for the garden, of course?

Beer! Good stuff, add it to the pile.

I have a hard time seeing beer or choc cookies(as mentioned on a compostables list) get too old to eat!

Cookies are never too old to break up and mix into chocolate ice cream. Never cared for beer.

But, I'd miss the company...........LOL No homemade beer for me or the pile thanks, I know what that smells like........whew! My Granddad use to make his own, now I understand why my aunt who use to help take care of him was not a happy camper. LOL

Beer gets old around here. Hubby doesn't like it and I only drink one or two dark beers in the autumn (like for Octoberfest festivals). I still think it'd be fun to try to make it. Now cookies are another story! They'd never get old. Is it really okay to add them to compost?

it was in a list that somebody found and posted in one of these threads not too long ago

I remember now, it had fingernail clippings and used q-tips, too. Ewwww

I rember seeing a site where people compost everything. They had compostible toilets in the house.

Dean..that's going too far now!! Eeeww too "green" for me!
At least we know our plants won't be driving! :=D

Our plants may not drive after adding the beer but ya better keep an eye on those worms... they may get drunk and try to make a run for it.

I thought worms only liked tequila.

That is just the Mexican worms that haunt the tourist traps along the coast. All the others like beer and wine.

Y'all are just too funneee....what have you been drinking???

Iced tea...of course!

Chamomile tea. Too yummy to put it in the compost pile.

My worms are addicted to orange pekoe tea leaves and green tea leaves with fresh mint. But they don't seemto care too much about the rose hip tea.

Most "American beer" has been pasturized, so I doubt if there is much live yeast left - "Craft-brewed beer" on the other hand has not been "cooked" in a pasturization process, so plenty of good left. But the garden doesn't seem it object to either, so have at it. According to most of the threads in this forum, you may process the beer through your body before adding to the compost pile - lol.

BTW - there are more saints in the Catholic faith devoted to beer or bread making than any other subject - thought that was an interesting bit of trivia.

bubba, I can't drink, rare liver disease, so the garden will just have to have "unfiltered" beer, haha.

Hi folks,

About that old beer. . . I had two large pots filled with geraniums, petunias, and a trailing vine that is supposed to be annual in my area (7). With the drought and my husbands jobless state this summer, I neglected to water the pots. My husband's band practice resulted in a few guys pouring the end of beer (mostly spit, so I'm told) into those pots. By early November, everything was back and blooming almost as good as when I planted them in April! Now I run around collecting "used" beer cans to keep my plants looking good!.

Funny town for that beer to come from, lol ....

You guys missed the composting article that I wrote over 2 years ago. It consisted of the title "The joy of composting" and featured me turning my compost pile while I placed an empty can of beer on each step of the process. At the end of the pile turn there were 12 Buds sitting on the pile with me passed out from the joy of the compost pile.
dave deleted the whole journal of all of my postings when they converted to the new site. So all is lost. Too bad. Anyway beer is not used IN the compost but rather ON the compost pile. tee hee

now that is funny! Hmm, I wonder if my neighbor would turn the compost if I buy?

You betcha. That was the whole point. Anyone would help to have a suds. If they don't there is a lot of urea placed on the pile which is a good source of nitrogen. LOL

Pagancat - good one, HA HA. I've been wishing my DH would get the hint, do you have any idea how long I searched for a place to live with a name like "Temperanceville"! But then I guess I wouldn't be able to use the spit stuff at the bottom on my garden.
Soferdig - maybe I can get the guys to use my composter when they are outside, if not the weeds around the side of the studio should be doing well come Spring.

Well,
On Christmas Day I opened a 5-gallon jug of homemade peach brandy, for the first time, that I put up in 1993. It has sat on the floor of my closet for 14 years. Pretty old stuff. By no means were any worms gonna taste that brew!

P.S. I had to refuse to throw the fermented peaches onto the compost pile for fear of incurring a safety violation. We decided we could take cardboard paper towel tubes, stuff one 'a those shriveled up, fermented peaches down there, light a match and "WHOOSH!" -- homemade Roman Candles for New Year's Eve!

I have never sucked so hard on a peach pit in my life!

I think you deprived your worms...at least with all that's going on in the compost piles these days.

Well, I have to get into this, I started making beer in the 80's, don't drink, but I like a challenge. I found that the hardest, thickest, least likely to break bottle was "Corona." So, I had the drinkers of that brand and 2 bars save me the bottles, cleaned 6-pack holders and clean boxes. Started the beer brewing in 3 seven gallon buckets with rubber gaskets and holes on top for air vents. (you put a rubber stopper in the hole and a plastic airlock tube thing in it to release the gases without letting any air back in. (You put a little water in the airlock and it starts to "blurp, blurp" in a day or so after mixing the water, sugar, malt extract and yeast) Well, in about a week to a week and a half when the "blurping" slows or stops, you carefully siphon off the liquid being careful not to disturb the yeast (or "wort" it may be called) on the bottom. Then you add a little over one cup of sugar to the liquid (beer) and bottle it with a bottler. (A cute upright metal thingy that tightly caps your boughten flared caps over the bottles. Then you store the cases of beer for a week or so and it's done. (3 buckets make exactly 7 cases) But, the best thing is that yeast/wort on the bottom of each bucket goes out to the compost and gets evenly distributed all over the pile in the warmest months of the year and (And Listen Zany) the worms go from one inch wanna-be's to 'nightcrawler size in 5 days! And since I don't drink, I've been known to empty partial bottles all over the compost freely, when all the impressed "tasters" have gone to the next friends' house to visit.
Kinda silly to be famous for making "The best Beer in Seward", when I don't even drink, huh?
I insisted that those who took any home with them, rinsed the bottles out, (no yeast, cigarettes (yuk) or anything nasty) and returned the bottles. I kept the clean bottles, paper 6-pack holders and clean boxes stored in double bagged trash bags between batches.
But, you know the custumers, (no I didn't sell it, just a term Dad used for dinner guests, borrowers, etc) that little hobby went by the way for lack of respect and overindulgence. IMHO.
Carol

Carol - Beer Chef to the Worms!

Thank you, Thank You... (bows in 3 directions)