Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
bran will introduce more beneficial microbes into the mixture, which will increase their odds
of outcompeting the putrefying microbes.
4. There wasn't enough bran added to the bucket regardless of contents. The microbes are trans-
ferred tothe foodwaste via the bran,soalack ofbrancan result inalack ofmicrobes todothe
fermentation. If the contents aren't fermenting, then they are somewhere between fermentation
and putrification, and that will tend to smell bad.
OneotherimportantpointIwanttomakeisthattheproductionofbokashiteaisnotanindicator
of the success of the fermentation process; it is an independent variable. In other words, lack of tea
doesn't mean that fermentation wasn't successful, just as the presence of tea doesn't mean it was
successful. If you put a lot of wet stuff into the bucket, you will tend to get tea, and if you add stuff
that isn't so wet, you will tend to not get tea. People often ask me things like, “I don't have any tea
or I have very little tea, what I am I doing wrong, why isn't the process working?” My response
is that the production of tea isn't tied to a successful fermentation, you just aren't adding a lot of
liquid or high-moisture contents to the bucket. And that is perfectly fine. If your bucket smells OK
and is fermenting OK, but you aren't getting bokashi tea, it's all good.
If you want to increase the amount of tea your buckets produce, you can do things like blend
your food waste or pour small amounts of water through the buckets when they start filling up, but
in my opinion this doesn't seem worth it. Again, the extra work isn't worth the reward, so why
bother?
Bokashi tea is just another by-product of the bokashi composting process. The true value of
bokashicompostingwillalwaysbethefermentedkitchenwaste,notthetea.Maybethatwillchange
in time, but for now the jury is still out on the bokashi tea.
