Bokashi for beginners: what is it, and what can it do for me?

I've seen some discussions on bokashi, but can't think of any threads that just start with the very basics. So this is an intro.

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CLICKABLE LINKS)

Part 1: What is Bokashi
Part 2: How can bokashi help me? What does it do or not do, compared to other types of composting?
Part 3: How to make bokashi compost.
Part 4: using bokashi compost
Bokashi at work in a container
Johnnybsmokin's nice bokashi buckets for cheap

What is Bokashi?

According to Wikipedia, Bokashi is a Japanese word meaning

"shading off, gradation"[1]. It may refer to:
Bokashi (printing), a printing technique
Bokashi, blurring an image as a form of censorship
Bokashi composting

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The meaning of concern to the gardener, of course, is bokashi composting. Composting is many things to many people. Some have a very strict definition, while others use the word more generally. I am of the general persuasion, so I define composting as putting together a composite of ingredients, usually scraps in my case, to stabilize those scraps in a state that is useful for improving soil fertility. Or in the case of bokashi compost, I can also use it to feed animals (my dogs love it) like my worm bin, which I consider a sort of pet.

Bokashi compost is a composite, or compost, that I put through acid fermentation, which is the same process that gives us yogurt , sauerkraut, and a similar product called silage, which you may have heard of. These are all acid fermentation by a group of bacteria called lactobacillus. Unlike silage, which is also fermented, bokashi uses a strong inoculant, in my case bran that has itself been soaked in a weak molasses and water mixture, fermented, then dried. Mixing the bran throughout the composed scraps allows the home user to make properly fermented bokashi compost without worrying too much about letting air into the system. Because so many of the lactobacillus bacteria are present in the mashed together food, and because they have so much to eat, they wake up and multiply like crazy, and make it impossible for anyone nasty or any decomposers to move in, even if there is quite a bit of oxygen.

Wikipedia describes various methods of bokashi composting, not just the one commonly used outside Japan, by people employing a product called "Effective Microbes", or EM.

However, Bokashi can be made by inoculating any organic matter with a variety of hosts of beneficial bacteria/microbes. This includes manures, spent mushroom compost, mushroom spores, worm-casting tea, forest soil tea, yeast, pickles, sake, miso, natto, wine and beer. Molasses feeds the microbial cultures as they inoculate the organic matter.

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You can make it in an uncovered pile of manure, in a bin, whatever. The inoculant you use puts the power of dominant organisms in your hands. In this thread I will just focus on the common method of making bokashi in North America. Enter the bokashi bucket

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Coming up next: How can bokashi help me? What does it do or not do, compared to other types of composting?

yeah, some nuts and bolts discussion would go a long way

so many get caught up on the technicals and lose folks like me

i made some LB by poking holes in a yoghurt lid, 1/3 of the container filled w/ rice rinse for 1 wk, strained solids off and filled 3/1 w/ milk, then (1 wk l8r) at the end:

Awesome post, mad. I cant wait for part 2

got my attention....

subscribed

ArcticBlast

I might add, that anyone who has anything they want to see included in the next segment, send me a PM. Feel free to ask questions, and those of you who are familiar with bokashi, answer them. Let's keep it basic, there are tons of technical threads for arguing about this or that. I'd like someone curious but unfamiliar to get what they need in a concise format. I can also edit segments, but not if it means making it too long.

Part 2

Part 2

Part 2: How can bokashi help me? What does it do or not do, compared to other types of composting?

The point of adding bokashi compost or humus to your soil is to provide nutrients, important soil organisms, and soil structure. Humus does this right away, while bokashi first goes through a process pretty much like the one you see in a hot compost pile, although not so hot and probably covered in worms having a food and sex orgy. Why not just bury fresh veggie scraps? You can, but it's going to take a while to break down and may not break down in an always helpful way, as it will likely putrefy. Burying bokashi compost, on the other hand, is a time tested way to dispose of organic waste and improve the soil all at once.

Bokashi compost and humus (regular compost) don't look anything alike. Humus from hot composting looks like coffee colored dirt and smells healthy and fresh. When it is ready, bokashi compost looks like weird bloated versions of the stuff you put in there, but everything is recognizable. It smells very sour, like a Strange Brewery (a place where Beerhunter is played).

So you can't make aerated tea out of bokashi, it's more like pickled trash than like decomposed trash. What you can do, and what is most commonly done, is bury it directly. Maybe in a trench, or just a hole, and let's not forget containers. Surprisingly fast, there will be no trace of vegetable matter. But you are likely to find very rich earth, and tons of worms. Because worms dig bokashi, for breeding and feeding.

Why does this work? I don't know yet. Maybe someone else can tell us. this guy describes a typical application and the results:

Personally, I'm not sure how much better bokashi compost is for your garden than plain-old compost, but I can say that stuff does break down very fast in the soil, and that when I dig in the area a month or two later it is absolutely WRITHING with earthworms. Huge masses of them. I can also quite immodestly brag that the garlic that I grow are absolutely huge, and have taken two blue ribbons at the Fall Fair, on an island where people take garlic growing very, very seriously (see photo!).

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There are other things you can do with bokashi compost, like feed it to worms, or even chickens and other animals. But there are some things you can't do with bokashi that only humus from aerobic compost can do: aerated tea as i mentioned, top dressing living plants, making seedling mix, adding to a container where it will contact roots, or adding to mix for immediate use.

Bokashi compost can also be added to aerobic compost, and is said to speed the process vs. composting the same veggie scraps without pickling them. I have noticed it heats up easily even in a small pile, a bit like manure (it's also acidic like manure).

While worm bins can't handle certain foods like garlic, and aerobic compost piles are not a good place for meat scraps, dairy waste, or cooked foods, a bokashi bucket will handle almost anything fresh you can throw at it. Furthermore, I have noticed that once I have made bokashi compost out of forbidden ingredients, I can feed it to the worms or hot compost it without fear. There is one group of food scraps, though, that you can't put in the bokashi bin: spoiled or rotten food.

Another important aspect of the bokashi bucket is that you don't need an outdoor space, or even a basement area or or kitchen area to keep a bin. I have lived in various places and large cities in very tiny apartments, and not one of them was too small to be able to pickle my trash. And there is always a garden nearby to take the bokashi compost you can't use.

In part 3, I will cover the process of making bokashi compost

Glad Bokashi has it's own thread.

There are some really good youtube videos on this as well.

I'm stoked for my EM-1 Microbial Inoculant to arrive, so I can get this churning out as spring arrives.

great to hear re9volt, check back here for my recipe to make a 10lb batch of bokashi bran, which will be in the next installment.

will do.

I've seen a couple of recipes, but hopefully yours can clear up some confusion for me. Going by your posts, I would say it will be informative and thorough.

One recipe I saw said to mix the em1 with sea salt, bran, and "ceramic powder".

I've heard of that used as an additive for paint, but not sure.

looking forward to part 3

Bokashi for Beginners, part 3

Bokashi for Beginners, part 3

Part 3: How to make bokashi compost.

In this part, I will go over how to make bokashi compost using a bokashi bucket and inoculated bran. For anyone interested in making their own bokashi bran, there are great videos on youtube that cover that. At the end of this installment, I will give a recipe by volume for making 10 lbs of bokashi bran, but I won't give directions, since they are everywhere.

Bokashi composting is done in a sealed bucket. That means as long as it stays closed, there is zero odor. When you do open it, the odor is sour, like some kind of strange brew. Below are my buckets. Both are commercial, rather than DIY bins (https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3254307&postcount=12). They are pricey, but I think well worth it.




Notice the spigot at the bottom, which is used to drain off excess liquid. Ask me about the liquid later.



Bran that has been moistened with molasses, a lactobacillus inoculant (like EM or homemade LAB serum), and water is sealed and fermented for a while, then dried out. You can buy this stuff if you would rather not make it, or you can make it. Making it is less than a tenth of the price I reckon. You can also do this with newspaper and who knows what else.




I start with a layer of organic matter. I use this container because when it's full with a mound, that's about as thick as I like for one layer. This is french fry rejects from making steak and fries, coffee grounds and filters, and some clones I'm not going to use or give away.



So I open the bucket. Here is what I find, white asparagus butts, from an asparagus pesto I made. I like the green ones, but the white ones were on sale. It was pretty damn good.

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I spread my food scraps out in the bin.



Sprinkle on some bran and mash down.



But now I'm left with the marinade from the steak. Don't wanna chuck it. It's olive oil, black rice vinegar, agave nectar, and soy sauce.



I don't want to pour it in this mostly empty bucket either, as it might go straight to the bottom and drip down. The solution is to mix a half cup of bokashi bran with the marinade, and then drop that in the bucket.



Then I mash everything down with a masher, and close the lid.

You may be wondering why I have two buckets. The reason is that one ferments fully while I fill up the other. Normally I put the second bucket in the basement, but it's cold now, and that really slows down fermentation. Other than putting stuff in, the only other task is draining the liquid. The liquid, by the way, has its uses.

Once the bucket is full, it gets topped up with bran, and then it stays closed for at least 3 weeks at room temperature. The longer the better. Then it's ready to go. I don't have picks of anything ready that isn't covered in worms.




In the next installment I will discuss do's and dont's of using bokashi compost in your garden. I will also discuss feeding it to composting worms. That should probably be the last one.






Here is the recipe for bran. The part I give that you don't normally get is a volume measurement for the bran. Follow the normal directions.

10 lbs bokashi bran

17.5 qts bran (feed grade)
1 TBS sea salt
3L water
30mL EM or LAB serum
30mL blackstrap molasses

optional:
ceramic powder (I don't believe in it but whatever)
I throw in a handful or two of azomite.

Thanks for clarifying that recipe!

For those looking for a cheaper way than buying the "bokashi bins" that you see online for $40-60, just buy 2 5 gallon buckets and a spigot or rubber stopper plugs.

All you need to make your own are 2 buckets ($2.97 each from HD) and a rubber stopper from hardware, ($.87) total cost $6.81.

Weimaraner optional.



Drill a bunch (20-40?) 1/4" to 1/8" holes in the bottom of one, and firmly press it into the solid one.

At this point you can either just lift top bucket out to collect juice, but having a drain plug is easier.
Using a spade drill bit , make hole into the bottom bucket in the space between the bottom of the first bucket and the bottom of the second for collecting the bin juice. Insert rubber drain plug.

A great addition to this thread would be a DIY bokashi bucket post with pics and instructions. If the thread gets long, just edit your earlier post so everything is near the beginning.

hint hint...

The only advantage to the store-bought buckets is appearance. My wife does not allow 5 gal buckets in the kitchen. Of the two buckets I show, btw, the one with the green lid is a better product.

re9volt said:

*& - just buy 2 5 gallon buckets and a spigot.

Drill a bunch (15-20?) 1/4" to 1/8" holes in the bottom of one, and firmly press it into the solid one.

Insert the spigot into the bottom bucket in the space between the bottom of the first bucket and the bottom of the second for collecting the bin juice.

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great DIY

Whoops, I forgot to say that I subscribed. Nice thread mad librettist. Is it just me or are those MJ's on some of the pictures new?

Those are watermarks, because people steal pics, and if you watermark the corner it means nothing. I don't want some guy with a blog claiming my work. lazy bastard.

The MJ stands for Maryjane, of course.

So I have two courses of action for the last installment:

I can do a write up. Or I can do a write up with pics. But I won't have finished bokashi for 3 weeks, then I may be too busy with work (I work occasionally lol). So it may be a month.

What say ye?

mad librettist said:

So I have two courses of action for the last installment:

I can do a write up. Or I can do a write up with pics. But I won't have finished bokashi for 3 weeks, then I may be too busy with work (I work occasionally lol). So it may be a month.

What say ye?

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I say write up with pictures!

second that vote with pictures. awesome work. thank you for taking the time.

Sounds like an excellent story. Thanks for providing this valuable information.