How I compost with a Bokashi System and make my own Bokashi Bran.

I'm proud to be able to say that we recycle 100% of our food waste. We have compost bins, worm farms and chickens. For everything else we use Bokashi.

Through Facebook Market Place and our local Buy Nothing FB page I have acquired two Bokashi bins to process the food waste that our other systems ideally should not take. Not an easy thing to find 2nd hand, but if a BCC resident you could get one with the rebate scheme, or team up with a neighbour and get two.

I keep a 2kg yoghurt pot in the fridge and add to it old bread scraps, meat and grease items, onion and citrus waste, and anything that I find out of date at the back of the pantry that can't go to the chook, in the compost, or to the worms. Once a week I add these scraps to the Bokashi bin and cover with a layer of Bokashi bran. Once one bin is full, perhaps a month to six weeks?, I start the 2nd. A full bin needs to sit for two weeks to ferment. Usually when I start a new bin I'll have found a suitable spot in a resting garden bed and buried the contents of the full bin, or added it to the middle of a compost bin when I move things along in my three bin system.

Bokashi bran is pricey and I'm not a fan of either the plastic bag it comes in, nor the plastic bottle the spray version comes in. I make my own therefore.

The equipment I use to make bokashi bran. Here is the recipe and method I follow. I make 2kgs at a time.
https://www.turningtogreen.com/post/diy-bokashi-bran...(*see%20Amazon&text=Mix%20one%20tablespoon%20(15ml)%20of,feel%20moist%20but%20not%20soggy

I use this airtight bucket for processing the Bokashi Bran and storing the finished product.

Here is what my Bokashi Bran mix looks like two weeks after making, it needs to rest for this long. Lots of good mould on the top. Using clean equipment seems to be the go, otherwise you may end up with green/black mould.

After 2 weeks resting in the bucket my bran is tipped into this tray for drying. I use a garden aerator tool to break up the chunks as much as possible. I store the tray in the shed where it is usually warm and dry, to dry the mix out before storing in the bucket.

A sample of my finished Bokashi Bran. Made for a fraction of the cost and with minimal packaging waste.

Bokashi waste is a great soil improver. Both my lemon tree and bay tree grew rapidly after burying bokashi in the same bed.