Bokashi bran

[Monika]

I am contemplating buying some bokashi bran to speed up the composting process before putting our vegetable kitchen rubbish into the compost bins. Does it work? And is worth it?
Please note, we don't have a wormery but ordinary compost bins into which we put only kitchen rubbish like potato peelings, cabbage leaves, tea bags, coffee dregs and similar.
I have an inkling that this was asked before on the KG forum, but I can't find it.

[Colin_M]

Yes it works, though I've only ever used it in a proper bokashi bin.

The end results are pretty high smelling, but seem to speed up the overall decomposition process in my compost bins.

[nemo]

urine human or animal is a great activator.animal urine is easily got from farmers that house there animals in sheds to overwinter them there are more and more organic farmers out there its only a matter of finding one .seaweed helps.but most of all turning the contents of the compost bin which adds air this will speed up the process

[Chantal]

My Bokashi doesn't smell Colin and I don't think they should. We even have two in the kitchen at work and they'd never tolerate them there if they smelt bad.

Monika, I can't see the point in adding Bokashi bran to an ordinary compost heap as it's designed to get rid of pathogens etc associated with meat, fish,processed food, etc. Why bother putting it into something that's just vegetable matter. It seems like an expensive way of doing things.

As Nemo says, just pee on it!

[Mike Vogel]

My first bokashi smelled slightly sweet, as did the liquid. But the second wasn't as pleasant. The difference is caused by how much meat and fish refuse you put into it. The more bran you use, the sweeter the smell.

I'm going to persevere, but I really do wonder whether it is worth the £30-odd per year.

mike

[Monika]

That's been very helpful, everybody! We produce very little meat or fish waste. so it would really be only vegetable matter and torn up toilet rolls etc. We have produced very good compost for years in our four large bins (ex-dustbins with holes) because I stir them every two weeks or so and we do use the "golden liquor" occasionally. I just thought that the bokashi bran would speed things up a bit in winter. But, Mike, you are right at about £15 for 3kg, it's an expensive way to pay for my impatience!