Turn ALL your food scraps in rich compost with a Bokashi Kitchen Composter.

Add your kitchen waste, including cooked food, meat fish and dairy products, together with a handful of the magic bokashi bran to the specialised Blackwall composter. After two weeks the contents can be safely transferred to your compost bin or dug straight into the garden.

The Kitchen Composter is small enough to be kept in the kitchen (under the sink, for example), and the bokashi bran actively neutralises any odours. The composting system is clean and easy to use and will quickly become part of your kitchen routine.

The Kitchen Composter kit includes everything you need

• Two Kitchen Composters each with carry handle, air-tight lid, drainage tap, inner drain tray and a liquid drain cup
• 600g of Bokashi bran (2 months supply)
• Full instructions

Two Kitchen Composters are supplied so that you can rotate the composters and continually compost your food waste.

Bokashi Kitchen Composter description

• Price: £58.50
• Dimensions: 32cm wide x 25cm deep x 37cm high
• Weight: 1200 grams
• Capacity: 15 litres
• Made from partially recycled plastic
• Guaranteed for 2 years

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More about bokashi composting

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This post describes the science in layman’s terms and invites readers to comment on their favourite way to recycle food waste. Of course, I added my two-pennies worth about the merits of bokashi composting! So, by composting our own food waste in a compost heap or bin, the carbon dioxide generated is far less harmful to the environment than the methane generated from that same waste going to landfill – it’s a no-brainer mate!

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Click here for more information on how to get the best out of your bokashi composter.

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Get the low-down on how to make great compost

I’ve written about the merits of bokashi juice on my Bokashi Instructions page. There I talked about how EM-rich bokashi juice (the by-product to bokashi composting) can prevent algae build-up in drains. I’ve also noticed how well bokashi juice cleans stains from around the plug when it’s poured down the sink, but with commercial products being developed, this takes the benefits of micro-organisms to a whole new level.

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You’ve embarked on your bokashi composting adventure, you’re feeling good about your green credentials, but to your dismay, your bokashi bin leaks. This is what to do:

My Bokashi Bin Leaks! How do I Fix It?

This is a problem for two reasons:

1. It smells bad
2. The composting process is anaerobic; a leaking bin means air can get in and your waste may not ferment properly.

So, what do you do?

Well, you need a two pronged attack – fix the leak and reduce the juice. If, after that, your bokashi bucket still leaks, you’ll need to replace the tap’s washers.

1. Fix the leak

Assuming the leak is coming from the tap at the base of the unit, the likelyhood is that the silicon seal isn’t doing its job. Remember, it should only be finger tight. Any tighter and the washer may stretch. You can’t access the nut without first removing the waste, so try to tighten it by turning the tap clockwise. If this doesn’t work, try applying some silicone sealant to where the tap joins the bokashi bin. Otherwise, I’m afraid, it’s a case of removing the waste, replacing the seals and making sure the nut is only finger tight.

2. Reduce the juice

You can easily reduce the amount of juice your bokashi bin produces by only adding dry material. Avocado skins, egg shells, potato peelings and bread crusts, for example, won’t produce much liquid. Fruit scraps like pineapple peelings and apple cores, and tea bags do produce a lot of juice, and for now at least, should go straight on the compost heap, or dug directly into the garden. While your bin is drying out, stand it on a tray just in case there is any further leakage.

3. Replace the washers

The tap screws on to the bokashi bucket and a rubber washer should be placed on both the inside and the outside of the unit. If the nut holding the tap is too tight, the washer may stretch and the seal will be broken. Consider replacing the washers with good quality washing machine inlet hose washers to ensure a water tight seal. You can buy a set of six from Homebase or B&Q for about £1.20. These won’t stretch, which means you can tighten the nut more than you could with the standard issue silicone washers. Once the tap is in position, fill the bucket with water and test for leaks before adding your next batch of bokashi compost.

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Click here for more information on how to get the best out of your bokashi composter.

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1 refill bag for the Kitchen Waste Composter contains 600g of bokashi bran, which is enough for approximately 2 months. Buy in bulk and save:

1 x 600g   £4.95

3 x 600g   WAS £12.50 NOW £12.23

6 x 600g   £23.50

BUY MORE BOKASHI BRAN >>

Want to compost ALL your organic kitchen waste fast? Try a bokashi bin for quicker composting, plus get all the added benefits while you’re at it.

Sound familiar? I’d love to recycle my food scraps, but my garden’s too small for a compost heap… or, I haven’t got time to sort through what I can and can’t compost, so my food waste ends up in the rubbish bin.

Recycling ALL your food waste quickly – it can be done

Composting organic kitchen waste (plate scrapings and the rest) especially when you only have a small garden is not easy, but it is possible. One solution is to purée your scraps in a blender each day and bury the pulp in the garden. It will compost and it won’t attract pests, but it will take months to break down.

I’ve tried lots of different composting contraptions developed for home gardeners and I’ve found that indoor compost buckets don’t really work. A composter needs to be big enough to generate the required heat. Without this critical mass, stuff just becomes slimy and smelly and instead of rotting down, it just rots. Worm bin devices work well, but only for plant-based scraps, and they take up more room than a lot of people would like.

A simple composting system from Japan comes to the rescue

Thankfully, a composting system developed in Japan means you can now recycle all your organic kitchen waste including dairy, meat and cooked foods. The process uses bokashi bran, wheat bran that has been inoculated with effective micro-organisms (EM). EMs contain good bacteria that help ferment the organic material and transform food waste into rich compost in just 4 to 6 weeks.

Bokashi composting works much faster than ordinary composting. The bokashi bran helps to pickle the organic material and speedily break it down into enzymes and amino acids, which plant roots love. The fermentation period takes about two weeks, and the composting stage takes about a month. That’s why bokashi bins are usually sold in sets of 2; it takes the average household about 2 weeks to fill one bucket, so while one is being filled, the other can be fermenting.

Using the bokashi bin system

The system is very straightforward and if adopted will quickly become part of your kitchen routine. Simply put your non-liquid food scraps into the bucket and sprinkle one handful of bokashi bran to every 3 to 4 centimetres of waste. Press the mass down lightly and reseal the container. The mixture will produce a liquid by-product called bokashi juice, which should be drained using the tap at the base of the unit. Repeat this layering process until the bucket is full, then leave it stand for 2 weeks to ferment, but make sure you regularly drain off any excess juice.

Once the first load is ‘cooked’, the waste will smell like sweet pickle and can be directly buried in the garden, or in a large container of soil (at least a cubic metre), or, if you have one, tipped on the compost heap.

After about 4 to 6 weeks the bokashi waste will be unrecognisable; the waste will have converted to a rich compost, perhaps with the odd avocado stone or piece of bone still detectable. You can now plant straight into it, or move the compost to other parts of the garden. See Bokashi and your garden for more information.

Satisfaction guaranteed – especially if you’re a plant

The beneficial microbes present in bokashi compost go to work as a nutritious soil conditioner encouraging healthy plant growth, whilst bokashi juice can be used as a liquid fertiliser for plants indoors and out (simply dilute it with water), or used as a probiotic cleanser and poured down the sink to keep the pipes clean.

The bokashi bin system fits perfectly into your low-impact lifestyle. You can vastly reduce the amount of waste you put out for the dustmen, and at the same time, quickly produce bokashi-enriched compost to give your garden a boost.

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Where would you like to go?

Buy a Bokashi Kitchen Composter

Bokashi overview

Bokashi explained

Bokashi Instructions

Bokashi and your garden

Bokashi FAQs