Bokashi Composting: My ongoing experiment pt 2

See here for my first post, when I originally bought this little wonder It has been operating in my single-male household for just under 2 months. I add bones, meat scraps, fat, veggie skins and ends, leftover salads and rice dish scrapings, the usual stuff.

I have found the process to be fairly easy, and completely bug free.  I have also observed very little in the way of smell. A light pickling smell inside when you open the lid generally, slightly stronger when the system gets out of balance and something is wrong.  Click the photos to get a really up close look in high resolution.

I did screw it up at one point and had too much mould. There was alot of white mould (which, my research shows is healthy) but there was green as well starting to develop. I realized that it was generating zero fluid even though it was weeks old and decided i would try stirring. I added a ton more bran, mixed it all in, the next day 5 ounces of tea came out and the thing seemed to “recover”.

Here we are today, after 4 days of not draining I took out 3 shot glasses (about 4 ounces) of fragrant tea.  I mix with water and use on my indoor eucalyptus tree and also dilute for use on thin areas of my lawn.

So far i have avoided ruining the batch somehow, it should be noted that I am a complete noob (newbie) and am experimenting as I go based on internet research.

I have found it helpful to use the empty plastic bag from my bokashi bran on top of the mixture to keep air out, this helps the pickling process and speeds up production.

I’m noticing the stuff is not rotting, or changing all that much, even meat and such, but that was something I read about. When placed in soil for a couple weeks this stuff should now break down almost immediately rather than taking a whole year to compost.

So far my assessment is positive, there is a lack of information & instruction on these things so I hope this helps people.

Notes to date:

1) Cost is about $5 a month for the active microorganism bran so far. This would be a little more for a family but trust me its better than bugs, worms, stinky compost, rotting stuff, and mess. Small price to pay and you CAN make your own bran if you are really into it.

2) Maintenance is almost nothing so far, I have learned to tell when the moisture level is off and I try to compensate.

3) Single people might find it a little hard to get started. I add small amounts usually which makes it a bit harder to get a base started. Luckily I had a couple bags of salads/Cole slaw that were starting to go off, so I ate what I could and bokashi’d the rest to get moving This is ideal for couples or families.

4) Mess is nonexistent. There is nothing harmful so you can wash the stir stick in the sink with dishes and the worst mess I have come up with is a few grains of bokashi I tend to spill when sprinkling it on top.

So there we go! So far I am positive about this experience. Just watch out for bad mould! If it takes hold more than a tiny bit, you have to dump the whole batch in the garbage and start over.

This is so much better than an ice cream pail under the sink full of scraps that stink before going into the outside bin.

I don’t have a compost bin outside either, so I’m doing this just for the sake of doing something good, and one of my neighbours is going to add it to their compost when the batch is ready.

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