Kombyashi and the art of fermentation

Well it's been a ridiculously long time since I blogged.  That's what happens when you are a mother of a young child and try to take on way too many projects!  But I'm pleased to say that I am back and just as inspired as ever.

So here is an update (although I haven't been blogging, I have still been moving forward in my waste free home mission).

I attended a composting, worm farming and Bokashi bucket workshop run by my council (Kingston Council) and it was fantastic!  You know the problem I had with throwing away bones and meat, well I have solved that problem at last with my new Bokashi Bucket.  I'm super happy about it and Brendan is too.  When we first got it we couldn't remember what it was called so we started calling it the Kombashi bucket which soon became the Kombyashi bucket.  It is the bucket of peace as it's name now suggests as there are no more fights over throwing bones in the compost.

So what the heck is a Bokashi bucket?  Well that's a good question because although I had heard of them in the past I wasn't entirely sure how they worked.  Here's the run down on all things Bokashi:

Bokashi is a Japanases term that means "fermented organic matter"  As the name suggests you use an enzyme mix to cover the food waste in a bucket and it ferments.  This is a different process to composting as composting requires oxygen for the microbes to break down the waste, whereas the Bokashi bucket is a sealed unit that must be kept air tight.  This is because the microbes in the Bokashi system don't like oxygen and will die.  This is called an anaerobic environment, whereas a compost is an aerobic environment.  The anaerobic environment doesn't produce heat like a compost and emits very few green house gasses.

Other facts about Bokashi buckets:

• You can recycle all of your food scraps including the ones you don't want to put in your compost like meat, bones and dairy as well as small quantity of paper scraps
• You can keep it in your kitchen, you don't have to put it outside as it doesn't smell
• the liquid fertilizer produced can be used on all your plants (liquid gold!)

The workshop I went to was useful in explaining how it all worked and they also GAVE me a Bokashi bucket and the enzymes which was a great bonus all for simply showing up! 

At first I must say I was a little intimidated because it was something new and it sat there on the bench for about 1 week.  But then one day I just thought "how hard can it possibly be?" and I put it all together.  There really wasn't much to it.  I had to screw on the tap and put in the plastic divider which separates the liquid from the solid waste and then I was good to go.  The instructions say - put waste in the bucket, squash it down making sure there is no air pockets and cover with the enzyme which resembles ground up bran flakes. Simple! I've been using my Kombyashi bucket for about 2 months now and just adding meat and bone scraps along with left overs with meat in them.  It is almost full.  So what happens when the bucket is full?  

I thought about how wonderful it would be for all those people living in apartments and thought that the Bokashi bucket was the answer to the problem of organic waste being thrown in the bin.  But then I found out that when the bucket is full the contents have to be buried for 2 weeks where  the process is finished off and turns into lovely compost.  I was a bit disappointed about that though only because it meant that if someone didn't have access to a spot outside where they could bury the contents of their bucket it wasn't really very practical for people living in apartments...

At any rate the Bokashi bucket closes the loop for me in regards to organic waste in our household and my mission of turning waste into food for my garden and indoor plants.  That makes me absolutely happy!  I can tick that one off my list - YAY!!!

My next step is to bury the contents of my Bokashi outside and wait 2 weeks.  Stay tuned for my next exciting adventure when I uncover the baked Bokashi :)