There is a good FAQ link at the top of this forum. You might want to check it out, it should answer most of your questions. Read through it and then check back here if you have any more q's.

Not that I don't want to talk about how great coffee grounds are...

I am jealous that you are turning a pile when my is buried under snow right now.

It is a green.

Having composted with UCGs in great quantities in the past, I envy you. :O)

Coffee grounds are about 2 percent Nitrogen so they are considered a "green" or a source of N.
A white "fungus" may be an indication the mix is too wet, but then again if may be the mycelia of mushrooms, a fungus that is at work digesting those coffee grounds. Generally fungi prefer a wetter environment and cooler then do the bacteria that digest most organic matter.

Doesn't Starbucks have a web page telling us all about it? I''l do a search when I have more time.

I was probably thinking of the Sunset analysis linked by someone below.

This post was edited by albert_135 on Sat, Mar 1, 14 at 15:07

Sunset magazine hade some Starbucks coffee grounds analyzed and they posted that on line.

Here is a link that might be useful: nutrients in coffee grounds

May be a silly question relevant to coffe grounds and filters. So I take 10 gallons of Grinds and Filters home. After pulling all the filters out, I have about 6 gallons of grinds and 4 gallons of filters.

Being I am extremely new to this and unable to find much on the filters themselve, how do you account for the wet filters. Green, brown, neutral?

Thanks

The filters are paper so they are browns. You will find they break down very quickly.

Thank you

I compost the filters, too.

Yeah, don't bother separating out the filters. I get a gallon or so per week of grounds and filters from my wife's office, and I just spread them in a layer on the pile and cover with something else. That way they don't clump up too much. But we only pull filters out when using grounds directly on plants (roses, etc.) in the summer. The filters go into the compost then too.

Cornell and most web sites say used coffee grounds are a C:N ratio of 20:1, if that is what the '%' in your OP was asking. If not, sorry, many people prefer to avoid any discussion of C:N, or greens vs. browns.

I'm afraid the whole leaves will not do much to generate heat with the grounds, leaves must be shredded to break down quicker. I shred my leaves four times with my mower (when my chipper/shredder is broken).

When the Starbucks grounds were quite wet, I used to break open the bags and let them dry in the rubbermaid containers in the garage or basement. If you kept them too many weeks, a white fungus-like growth began.

I remember a woman a few years back who wrote on this forum that she found a mix of grounds and paper worked well -- or at least 'smelled good'.

That is about what that Sunset Magazine article linked above says, too.