I bought the Clackamas coot mix from Buildasoil recently since I use similar inputs and was running low. The Clackamas nutes smelled like chemical bleach when it arrived.
I use the same inputs; crab, neem karanja, sesame kelp etc in fact I was cooking a batch at the time. My ingredients/mix smells like a seafood processing facility until cooking is well underway, nothing like bleach, ever. Out of any mix I’ve done I can’t fathom a bleach smell.
I told myself the BAS ingredients must be old, and the malted barley flour is affecting the smell of the crab meal. I cook the soil and things go as expected until it comes time to dial the pH. I always do this, since my compost sources are all over the place. I know what to expect after having done it for years.
My “WCCropper” soil batches, the ones that left my hands smelling like crab booty after mixing, are right around 7pH after adding my lime sources. Perfect.
The buildasoil coot batches however, the batches that made my soil smell like bleach for several days, all 3 of those batches are stuck around 6.2pH average. I added an additional 0.75 cups of lime per cubic foot. Still stuck.
I probed the bottom of the cook bins after adding the lime, and the ph was rising when the temperature was warm. After the lime had cooked the pH leveled down again.
Anyone seen this before? I’ve never seen soil refuse to lime in my life. And I’ve never smelled organic nutes that smell like bleach either. But I HAVE smelled bleached-washed septic-grown shrimp (love you China). Did buildasoil sell me fucking Chinese toxic avenger sewer shrimp as crab meal???