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Bokashi for beginners: what is it, and what can it do for me?
- Thread starter mad librettist
- Start date
<opinion>The quality of a fermenting process is directly related to the ingredients used<opinion>
The one, only and last time I made a 'bokashi bran' I used 50 lbs. of organic pelletized rice hulls and the same amount of a dry mix I had bagged which included alfalfa, soybean meal, canola meal, flaxseed meal, sunflower meal, fish meal and probably something else.
As a soil amendment it sucked so I used it to activate compost piles for a couple of seasons. Then that compost was run through my worm bins so I ended up with a very nice vermicompost but it was a really stupid way of getting there.
CC
The one, only and last time I made a 'bokashi bran' I used 50 lbs. of organic pelletized rice hulls and the same amount of a dry mix I had bagged which included alfalfa, soybean meal, canola meal, flaxseed meal, sunflower meal, fish meal and probably something else.
As a soil amendment it sucked so I used it to activate compost piles for a couple of seasons. Then that compost was run through my worm bins so I ended up with a very nice vermicompost but it was a really stupid way of getting there.
CC
I make bokashi with newspapers and have for a couple years now. The first batches I used EM1, then a homemade lacto b.
I layer veggie scraps, egg shells, apple cores, banana peels and things like that. Once or twice I might throw in some azomite or comfrey or whatever goodie I have around. The finished bokashi gets used with alfalfa meal and soy bean meal to activate my leaf mold compost pile. Then after the hot phase I add what worms I have.
Not that making bakashi with newspapers is all that special, or any of my methods, but the resulting compost i have, I'm actually moving with me 2.5 hours away. That's how much I reguard my compost. Serious....scrappy
I layer veggie scraps, egg shells, apple cores, banana peels and things like that. Once or twice I might throw in some azomite or comfrey or whatever goodie I have around. The finished bokashi gets used with alfalfa meal and soy bean meal to activate my leaf mold compost pile. Then after the hot phase I add what worms I have.
Not that making bakashi with newspapers is all that special, or any of my methods, but the resulting compost i have, I'm actually moving with me 2.5 hours away. That's how much I reguard my compost. Serious....scrappy
I use rice hulls as bokashi bran substrate. Wheat bran soaked the EM-1 up better, but I am up to my ears in rice hulls, so rice hulls it is.
As for the whole bokashi process, I can't say I love burying the fermented bokashi material or draining the bucket of "garbage juice" (as they call it), and if we had the right outdoor spot for hot composting I doubt we'd bother with bokashi - everything that the worms couldn't handle would just go into regular compost instead - but anywhere we bury bokashi ends up filled with fat earthworms and roots, so the EM does nourish soil life (better than plain old LAB or plain old molasses water? who knows). One spot ended up with salamanders wandering on the surface and earthworms under.
I was making my own activated EM solution from the mother culture, but it gets diluted so much that I have trouble using it all up in the recommended time, even when I put it on all of our beds and containers and bare spots in the yard, and I don't think I'm going to finish the gallon of EM-1 before it expires, so I may not bother activating any more, or maybe will aim for smaller batches. If I'd known how little I'd be using at a time I would have purchased a smaller bottle of mother culture.
The instructions say you can feed bokashi waste to worms, but I have never seen our red wigglers take to it in a timely fashion so I'll stick to using it as a soil amendment and worm/salamander magnet in dormant areas.
As for the whole bokashi process, I can't say I love burying the fermented bokashi material or draining the bucket of "garbage juice" (as they call it), and if we had the right outdoor spot for hot composting I doubt we'd bother with bokashi - everything that the worms couldn't handle would just go into regular compost instead - but anywhere we bury bokashi ends up filled with fat earthworms and roots, so the EM does nourish soil life (better than plain old LAB or plain old molasses water? who knows). One spot ended up with salamanders wandering on the surface and earthworms under.
I was making my own activated EM solution from the mother culture, but it gets diluted so much that I have trouble using it all up in the recommended time, even when I put it on all of our beds and containers and bare spots in the yard, and I don't think I'm going to finish the gallon of EM-1 before it expires, so I may not bother activating any more, or maybe will aim for smaller batches. If I'd known how little I'd be using at a time I would have purchased a smaller bottle of mother culture.
The instructions say you can feed bokashi waste to worms, but I have never seen our red wigglers take to it in a timely fashion so I'll stick to using it as a soil amendment and worm/salamander magnet in dormant areas.
Because it is how it was always done, does not imply that that is the best way, merely that it works. They used to dry MJ in the sun too, now we know sunlight degrades thc. In general microbes do better in the dark....scrappy
S
scai
I was wondering, this fermenting process with Em or Lab....
We use foodscraps and ferment it with very expensive substances, but, but...
Isn't this fermentation same process that A.I Virtanen invented to make fermented hay for cows...with acids...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artturi_Ilmari_Virtanen
I'm asking if it's possible we could make bokashi with acids?
We use foodscraps and ferment it with very expensive substances, but, but...
Isn't this fermentation same process that A.I Virtanen invented to make fermented hay for cows...with acids...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artturi_Ilmari_Virtanen
I'm asking if it's possible we could make bokashi with acids?
Lactobacillus plantarum is the most common bacterium used as a silage inoculant. Other bacteria used might include Lactobacillus buchneri, Enterococcus faecium and Pediococcus species.
Contrary to Dr. Higa's worker bees and promoters, bokashi is not something that Dr. Higa invented or even reinvented.
Great marketing though!!!
Contrary to Dr. Higa's worker bees and promoters, bokashi is not something that Dr. Higa invented or even reinvented.
Great marketing though!!!
S
scai
It isn't, you are right, but takes some time and work.
That's why I was wondering, could we make same fermentation with acids.
Mind you, I have been a farm worker and we made some hay with acids, and it kind looks like a same methods, but different indegriends?
Layer of hay, some mild acid, layer of hay...etc... and then you stamp allover it to make it anaerobic... Last layer might go bad (is in contact with oxygen), and you don't feed it to animals...
Gues I have to give it a go, to see what happens?
S
scai
And one more question. Original starter of this chain, said she doesn't want bokashi juice for anything.
I'm wondering, doesn't it have all the benefical indegrients that are in bokashi?
Could we use it for fermentation again, or as a nutrient in soil? Could we make bokashi grain with it? Or not?
Surely, its worth of gold? Full of all good that is in bokashi too?
I'm wondering, doesn't it have all the benefical indegrients that are in bokashi?
Could we use it for fermentation again, or as a nutrient in soil? Could we make bokashi grain with it? Or not?
Surely, its worth of gold? Full of all good that is in bokashi too?
QuentinQuark
Member
QuentinQuark
Member
Thanks to rrog for putting me on to this, I've successfully made three or four batches. They all smelled/stank a little different, I've combined the results together. I like to think it's a good mix of several different LABs but I have no idea. Have used it to make a batch of my own bokashi bran, and just started a bokashi bucket this evening as my bran is finally fermented, and dried. It stank up the garage real bad though, my wife is NOT impressed so far. Well I shouldn't say "stank" it didn't go bad or moldy or anything like that, just the fermenty smell is bloody strong.
I also "stole" some microbes from some ginger, I know ginger is teeming with microbes so I put some in water with a little molasses and let it sit for week or so, then scooped off the floaty mold, strained out the ginger chunks, ran it through a coffee filter, and added to my big mix, which I keep in the fridge in one of those water containers that has a big screw-on lid on top and a spout at the front, clear blue plastic like the big jugs but it's rectangular.
I also stole a LAB strain from store-bought yogurt, just strained some through a coffee filter. I also stole some from raw milk, let it ferment, took some of the result and let it ferment some fresh milk, and again and again in a cascading fermentation until it would "yogurtize" the milk in under 24h, I keep this as a mother culture to make homemade yogurt, and I did the coffee filter thing and added some to my mix.
I would use my mix to make yogurt, but I put some molasses in it and it's brown so the yogurt would be brown because when it comes to color, a little molasses goes a LONG way.
