I have some old beer myself and was wondering the same thing. Could I add it to the compost as a green source?

It's all compostable. There are people that will swear by the addition of beer to planting holes or whatever- but pick a food group and someone will make the same claims.

Compost it.

After a party last summer, I ended up with half a keg of beer. To ease my shame at such a poor party performance, I pumped it all into my compost pile for the bacteria and pill bugs to enjoy.

alcohol is wonderful in the garden - however, if you overdo it you may fall face first into your zucchinis.....

"To ease my shame at such a poor party performance"

Tell 'em you just couldn't finish the fifth keg....

Lloyd

Another benefit of alcohol in the garden. At least for me I know when I drink a lot of beer, its off to the bathroom for a potty break... The more you drink, the better your compost will be!!! ;)

You dumped HALF A KEG in the compost pile?!?!?!?!

WHAT SHAME you must have had. Compost wacko!

As far as alcohol in the garden, try not to drink more than a couple 40's of old english before making rows! A beer is great while working, if you're that concerned I've urine is much better.

So you can pee in the compost pile ? someone somewhere told me it would kiil my plants... I will have to admit I have tried "marking my teritory" so to speak, to try and keep little critters from poaching in my garden, and beer helped a lot with that project ! !

If you pee directly on some sensitive plants, it can kill them. Look at the grass where the dog pees. I have a large reed grass, that i pee straight on, and it just keeps growing. It also gets watered regularly to prevent burn.
If you have lots of leaves or wood, pee is a very cheap readily available source of N. I don't think you could put too much in a compost pile.

I'm thinking we should all go over to the suggestions forum and we should all suggest a new forum called "The Scatological Gardener".

This is simply from my experience, so YMMV.

Beer is excellent for composting, when used in moderation.. Why? Honestly I forget all of the scientific reasons, but I find it helps "heat up" my compost pile (seems to speed up organic decompostion). My wife tends to fall asleep about halfway through whatever show we are watching at night, so I usually have about a half of a beer every other day or so. I mix it in with my kitchen scraps and coffee grounds, and it seems to work well. I have read/seen several explanations of why it helps, and most agree it is a good thing if not overused.

Regards,
Will

I had about 5 litres of home-made wine (raisins & rice) that had been sitting around in it's own dregs for while but then it ended up getting mixed up so it was all cloudy and horrible to drink. the tailings from the yeast are loaded with nutrients and my first though was.. throw it in the compost. I can't say if it made things better but, it certainly didn't hurt anything.

The last time we bought a keg for a party (it was about 20 years ago) we also had poor drinking by the crowd. It seems that coworkers from a large corporation drink less than college students, who would have guessed? :-) After the beer went flat, we pumped it directly onto the lawn. The lawn was much greener and lusher there for the rest of the summer.

We also throw the leftovers from glasses of wine and beer into our compost container. I always drink all of my beer, but can't say the same for my friends. :-)

Marcia

The alchohol you put into your garden or compost pile will revert back to the sugar it came from and that will stimulate the bacteria to get busy and work harder, for a short time, digesting your organic matter. It is kind of like many of the drugs people take to "feel better" and after a while could become something necessary for your bacteria.

Beer or wine may contain unfermented sugars, but alcohol will not "revert" to sugar in soil or compost. It just doesn't happen.

All you dogs are really alike. My husband will take a pee off our wrap porch occasionally on warm weekend nights--even though we have a large bathroom an equivalent distance away from the den. I just thougt HE was nuts. Now I see it's a boy thing. Yikes.

Anyway, thanks for the forum. I am learning aLOT.

misslucinda- peeing outside saves water, reduces sewage/septic system load, acts directly as a fertilizer, redces bathroom use and need for cleaning, and it's just plain fun!

Seriously- it's good for the environment.

I was thinking of sending this thread to my two-legged mutt but am now wondering if that was "winter-burn" on my rhodies or man-made damage....Maybe I can train him to drain on the composter....

LOL

My all 4 of my boys (3 sons & hubby) will walk past two bathrooms in the house, just to go pee outside! It cracks me up constantly. You are not alone misslucinda!!

Hmmm... Interesting, the things one learns in one's old age. Won't DH be delighted to hear that I won't yell at him any more if he will just go to the compost heap instead of the side of the barn?!

Ethyl alcohol is a pure "brown" with no nitrogen, mostly hydrogen. It's hard to see what good it would do for the compost or the lawn. I think the suggestion to drink the beer and pee on the compost is a better approach.

Yes, but in that it's hard to get old dogs to learn new tricks maybe I should go in for a little personal conservation and recycling....

Honestly, I went out there and stuck my finger into the middle of the pile like someone on a thread suggested but it was just plain cool....too many leaves I think.

What would in you valued opinion heat it up?

If it felt dry, water might do it. Turning it never hurts, and you will have a better idea whether it is moist enough (should be like wrung out sponge). Otherwise you might need nitrogen, which is why people pee on their compost.

Pretty damp in most places, added water to the dry leaves and I'll see what happens (although I have lovely leaf mold I was thinking of adding).

You just learn something everyday.

Michael G said, "Ethyl alcohol is a pure "brown" with no nitrogen, mostly hydrogen. It's hard to see what good it would do for the compost or the lawn." In the case of beer or wine it is the other stuff in there, not the alcohol per se, that is providing nutrients to the compost/lawn. I know that beer is very nutritious and contains a lot of B vitamins. Barley and yeast certainly would be good in compost, that is what is in beer.

Marcia

I'm not sure I'd want to stick my finger into the compost (to check the temperature) after someone's peed in it...

Chris-
Nonononono no pee yet. Just getting desperate enough to try some.

Ethanol is not mostly hydrogen, at least by mass (which is how % are expressed for nutrients). It's mostly carbon. That's not all that you find in beer or wine, however- there's proteins (in real beer), undigested sugars, and all sorts of stuff.

I have a planted aquarium that uses a DIY CO2 generator to provide a carbon source to the plants....essentially yeast in a bottle. The sugar/baby formula mixture is converted to alcohol and more yeast over the course of about 2 weeks. I have 2L's of spent yeast every week and normally slosh it around in the front yard as a supplimental organic fertilizer. So I see no reason why (in moderation) alcohol could not be used in the compost pile. Now dumping a 1/2 keg on a small pile is probably not the best thing to do, but flat beer/wine/malt beverages are just fine.

Unfiltered wheat beer is probably the best beer to use in a compost pile since the yeast is high in B vitamins and the beer is generally pretty high in sugar/calories. I just can't bring myself to waste a beer on a compost pile, but more power to you.

A flat beer is a common ingredient in compost tea recipes.

HTH

I'm for it

But why go to the compost pile? Just dump it right in the garden.

I enjoy drinking multiple beers while working in my garden. I keep a bucket strategically located where I can't be seen, to collect the recycled product. The city brings me about 30 cubic yards of collected leaves each year which are dumped in windrows over 5 feet high. That's the reason for the bucket - I can't pee that high. It aids in the breakdown and adds nitrogen/vitamins that would otherwise be wasted.
No flat beer in my world - just recycled.