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Making Bokashi

Bokashi Supplies

Well, I finally got my rear in gear again with my bokashi experiment. I was hoping to get back to it sooner, but it was a little challenging to find time over the holidays. Anyway, I’m really glad I got it taken care of this weekend since I still have to wait an additional 2-4 weeks before I can start using my bokashi mix.

Truth be told, I wasn’t really looking forward to making my own mix. I thought it was going to end up being a huge hassle, and I wondered why on earth I hadn’t simply ordered ready-made bokashi. Now that it is all taken care of however, I’m very I glad I did! It was a lot of fun, and much easier than I expected.

I still need to track down a good source for large quantities of wheat bran. I got mine from the ‘Bulk Barn’ (I love that place!), which was certainly a better choice than the supermarket (which only sold small bags of it), but still a bit of a pain when looking for really large quantities (a.k.a a big ol’ sack of wheat bran). That being said, the amount I bought (approx. 2.5 lbs) ended up being the perfect amount to hone my bokashi-making skills with, and should provide me with enough mix to keeping going for a little while (once it is ready to use). I’m sure I’ll be able to track down someone who sells the stuff in much larger quantities, and if not I’ll simply head back to the Bulk Barn and buy a bunch of bags.

Being very unsure of how to make bokashi (the novice that I am), I made sure to refer to a couple of reliable sources, numerous times, before getting started.

The EM Bokashi page on the City Farmer website has an excellent set of instructions, and I also referred to Neal ‘The PodChef’ Foley’s instructional video. In the end I decided to follow Neal’s recommendations, since it involved adding proportionally more water/microbes/molasses. I figured adding more water would make it easier to mix everything up and ensure that the all the bran is thoroughly moistened.

The ratio Foley uses is 1:1:100 – microbes:molasses:water. In my case (using Foley’s water:bran ratio), I determined that I needed to add approx 750 ml of water, so I also added 7.5 ml each of microbes and molasses.

I started by boiling the water to ensure that it was sterile and because I wanted it warm anyway. Once it had cooled down to about 100 F or so I added the molasses and microbes and mixed it up very well.

Moistening the Wheat Bran

The mixing part was a lot more fun that I had expected! I had envisioned some sort of sloppy gunk that would get all over me and be very hard to get off (kinda like making hamburgers using ground beef/bread crumbs/egg), but the material was very easy to work with, and even smelled nice – it felt like I was getting ready to bake some bran muffins!
😆

Bokashi Mix - Ready to be Sealed

Once the mix was evenly moistened I filled a couple large ziplock freezer bags with it, squeezed out as much air as I could, then sealed them up. I made sure to write the date on them and then sealed them inside a bucket (more as a safe storage spot than anything).

Sealed Bokashi

Now I simply wait. Neal Foley suggests 2 weeks as the time needed (although he does mention something along the lines of “the longer the better”), while the City Farmer page says 1 month. Given the small quantity I’m making, I think 2 to 3 weeks should be sufficient. If any of you bokashi ninjas out there have some thoughts to share, please do so. I’m still learning!

In the meantime, I’m going to track down a larger supply of wheat bran and make another batch!
Stay tuned – much more bokashi news on the way!

[tags]bokashi, em, effective microorganisms, friendly microorganisms, compost, composting[/tags]

Written by Compost Guy on January 6th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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3 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Randy Wiser
#1. March 15th, 2009, at 7:19 PM.

Couple things. Food co-ops usually sell bulk amounts of most grains products, use google to find. I found that those 5 gal (sometimes larger) water “coolers” that one sees on construction sites makes a good airtight bokashi fermenter. Has a spiget in the bottom, tight fitting push on or screw on and its insolated. Much cheaper than any of the bokashi buckets I’ve seen and sometimes can be found at discount stores (found mine at Big Lots)

Randy

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Lee_in_Iowa
#2. March 28th, 2011, at 12:21 AM.

I just made my first batch of bokashi with ALL around-the-house ingredients–NO expensive bottle of EMs. It came out just like it was supposed to, very pickle-y smelling and then with the white mold over the top. Here’s my recipe for “essential microbes” to mix with a quart of warm water and about a third a cup of molasses:

a couple tablespoons of yogurt,
a good-sized pinch of any soil inoculants you have around (for peas, beans, alfalfa),
a tiny smidgeon of sea salt,
about a teaspoon of mixed minerals (actually, some health food stuff I had for people),
a little of a fertilizer with “mycorhizoids” in it,
about four tablespoons from the very bottom of my Rubbermaid worm bins (for the most anaerobic bacteria in the house!).

Shake it well, leave it open overnight in a warm place, then put a lid on it for a week.

Shake it again to get everything well mixed, and start mixing it with about 12 pounds of wheat bran ($1.12 a pound at my nearby health food store; ASK; they are buying 50 pound bags and may be able to give you a better deal from what they have stashed in the “back” of the store.)

Once i had the bran well-wet-down, I covered it and waited. After about 2 days, I got hold of a good bucket and took some very pickle-y bran out and used it to start bokashi. That’s going very well, seems okay to use it earlier.

So, that’s what I know….. (My pix are over on Vermicomposters.com; come join us!)

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Lee_in_Iowa
#3. March 28th, 2011, at 12:42 AM.

Well, darn. Forgot I only used half the wheat bran in the first batch–only 6 pounds. Sorry to keep revising…. Got it now.

So, no need for the $20 “EM”s and no need for the fancy shmancy $70 bucket, either. No need for a spigot at the bottom. Just any old closeable container, and this wheat/pickle-y concoction.