Compost tea in compost

I got busy and a bit lazy and left my compost tea to long.  I don't want to chance it in my garden, but don't want to waist it.  It has been bubbling about 8 or 9 days.  It doesn't smell bad, will it hurt anything to put it into the compost?  Could it harm the chickens if they eat something from the compost that has the tea on it.  I look forward to your opinions, because I would like to start a new batch for the garden.  Thank you.

I do not know your recipe so take what I say with a grain of salt. I have big plastic tub far away from my house. I packed it full of comfrey and sow thistle. I stir when I think about it. It can get pretty concentrated during the summer and boy does it stink! I dilute it and water plants in trouble. I have not had any bad results. I have a decent amount of volunteer vegetables out there but no wildlife will get close enough to eat anything. If I ever have neighbors I don’t like I will definitely have this stink fest on the property line!

I would venture that it would even be fine to water plants with it. The worst thing that is likely to have happened is most of the bacteria already bloomed out and died off so it won't be as powerful of a biological inoculant. It will not harm your compost.

I know one person that tried to run a continual compost tea, taking off some to use and topping it back up with fresh water, removing the tea bag and refilling it with fresh compost and castings, etc... I think he kept it up for about a month before concluding that it didn't really seem to add much value and was more of a hassle then expected. He didn't report any negative side effects on his garden from the experiment

I'd be leery about taking something that's anaerobic and dumping that on active aerobic compost.  It sort of defeats the purpose.  Those are two very different microbial communities.

Marco Banks wrote:I'd be leery about taking something that's anaerobic and dumping that on active aerobic compost.  It sort of defeats the purpose.  Those are two very different microbial communities.

I would agree with that, but I do believe Jen said it had been aerating the whole time.

Interesting side bar, I've made the anaerobic comfrey/nettle liquid like Scott described. It stank to high heaven for sure. But I then took some out, diluted it about 10:1 with water, and aerated it. After about 2 hours the mixture smelled sweet and earthy and I found it to be an absolutely amazing fertilizer

I’d add some more compost and sugars (oats or barley work), aerate it another 12hrs and use it as usual if it smells good. I also think the current old tea would just feed the active compost microbes, and diversify the pile. Which seems good to me. That or put in on a woodchip or mulch pile.