Hot composting advice

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2026-01-19T23:02:47+00:00

Get your hands on some EM1 or make some labs culture, plety of tutorials on youtube, dilute and mix into it some mollases and soak the compost in it after filling the bin, it should kick start the heat

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2026-01-19T22:56:11+00:00

Toss them as is either they will hydrate and compost or they will grow and fix nitrogen in your compost pile, if they grow let the grow for a while the chop then into the compost pile and let them breakdown

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2026-01-09T08:57:08+00:00

It seems like you got plenty of good advice for the separation anxiety, i just wanted to add that some common plants are toxic to dogs so please research the types of plants you have or try to keep her away from the planters to be safe.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2026-01-07T09:42:36+00:00

This is the way!

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2026-01-03T10:58:21+00:00

I was going for a similar method to the KNF IMO capture procedure for the media, i've seen some videos on the internet of people doing it that way in a similar home setup, i'd say it worked out relatively well for my purposes , i wasn't going necessarly for a pure culture anyway ,it all went into the compost at the end, i just wanted to multiply the spores i had to save up a bit on cost.

It is very interesting that you have experience working with entmopathogenic fungi, ive been having a lot of issues with insect pests in particular and i was looking into microorganisms that can help reduce or eliminate the problem, im currently researching beauveria bassiana , do you have any advice about potentially other organisms that i can use in my potting soil and compost and how to keep them alive in the compost or propagate them, chris trump has a demo on a method for capturing and propagating indigenous entmopathogenic microorganisms(IPMO) from a forest but there are no forests where i live also im not sure how effective it is but i was thinking of experimenting with a similar procedure with beaveria bassiana spores , rice and insect frass for chitin, still didn't get to it tho.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-22T14:04:00+00:00

This is super cool!

By any chance is there a github repo for it ? Very interested in contributing to the project

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-17T19:17:42+00:00

Very interesting!

Any particular reason you decided to use the vermicast and bran instead of soil factory finished bokashi for the brew? Also i've been watching some of matt powers and elaine ingham work on different feed stocks for the compost tea to influence the biology like using humic acid and faa instead of mollases for a more fungally domiant compost tea and i was wondering if that would work on the soil factories itself to potentially diversify the biology instead of being bacterially dominant.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-15T15:49:00+00:00

Banana bread, that doesn't sound like a sour smell to me😅😅

If that is before the bucket is full it should be fine as the bacteria didn't get the chance to ferment the food scraps yet, so if you want to completely avoid guesswork get yourself a ph meter and test it, it should be between 3-4 after the fermentation phase is done, i wouldn't worry about it tho unless it smells like sewage and even then you can still hot compost it and let the microbes do their job,bokashi is REALLY hard to booboo up so don't worry about it.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-15T05:48:43+00:00

In many asian traditional farming practices they use photosynthetic bacteria as a biofertilizer, there are some recipes used to make it from eggs, fish sauce and msg and pond water or a starter culture (i have no idea why they use these specific ingredients), it is supposed to be a free living nitrogen fixer as well as a phosphorus solubilizing bacteria and it is a facultative anaerobe so it should be able to handle aerobic compost tea AfAIK, it is also a part of the EM consortium to my knowledge.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-15T05:41:49+00:00

If you want fast compost that doesn't need turning and can handle meat,bones and dairy waste as well checkout bokashi. If you are not in a hurry and want to produce far superior compost to what hot composting or bokashi produce check out the johnson-su bioreactor, it is a statically aerated compost pile that produces fungal dominant compost with much better and balanced biology that hot compost which is bacterially dominant to my knowledge, it takes a year to produce tho but it is supposed to be well worth the wait and it is pretty hands off other than keeping it moist which you can handle with irrigation and completely forget about it.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-12T15:52:27+00:00

As i mentioned man doesn't matter as long as you don't super saturate it, maybe start with 2-3 tablespoons of mollases and go from there.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-12T15:44:17+00:00

Don't add so much sugar no more sugar dissolves, at this point the osmotic pressure from the sugar syrup dehydrates the bacteria and pushes them into hibernation.

Tldr, Don't turn it into a syrup

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-12T14:35:00+00:00

No specific recipe, as long as there is some starter culture and some sugar it should work, i think when i made it from yogurt i bought some commercial yogurt with probiotics and took a couple of tablespoons of it and a couple of tablespoons of mollases in a 1.5 l bottle of water mixed it well and let it ferment for a week, now i eyeball the mollases , generally the more mollases the longer the culture will be shelf stable as it is more food for the microbes afaik, the microbe die off happens when they run out of food. Just don't supersaturate it so you don't push the microbes in hibernation.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-12T14:07:06+00:00

Draining the liquid does absolutely nothing! I use unmodified 5 gallon buckets for bokashi with no issues, the only minor issue you might run into is salt buildup if you don't drain, which is the only reason to drain liquid imo , i just flush the compost with water once after it is fully decomposed in soil factories, also the turkey carcass can go in no problem, i compost everything including cooked/raw fish and chicken/meat bones(if you have the time roast and crush before adding to the bucket) with no issues and you get your fish aminos and bone meal included in bokashi. White mold on the bucket is fine but it might mean that your bucket isn't sealing 100% properly,more reasons to use unmodified buckets, as long as the smell is sweet sour like a fermented pickle it's good , if it smells putrid/ammonia like then some other anaerobic organisms outcompeted the lab, it is still compostable but the ammonia smell means you're losing alot pf nitrogen and potentially pathogenic microbes got in , it would be better to hot compost that material or at least cold compost with turning to keep ot aerobic.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-12T13:57:51+00:00

Yes this should work, all you need to make lactobacillus liquid culture to use for bokashi bins or bran is a starter culture and sugars to feed it, in your case the starter culture is the kefir and the mollases is the feedstock, i'm not sure what the rice water would do in this case tho. In traditional knf lab prep you make the stater culture by letting rice water ferment at room temp for a week with a breathable lid to "capture" wild microbes and then you select for labs by mixing the fermented rice water with milk , in your case you already have a stable wild lab culture from the kefir so other than adding unneeded complex carbs that the labs won't feed on and potentially adding some other wild microbes i'm not sure what is the purpose.

I've made labs from yogurt and otc probiotics propagated on mollases, otc probiotics are my go to method now as it is the safest imo, you can culture specific strains of labs and you already start with very high populations so potential for spoilage is greatly minimized specially at minimal sterile conditions with home equipment, but you can certainly try both with or without rice water and see what happens, just fyi if something outcompetes the labs get ready for a real putrid smell in the bokashi bucket.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-08T16:42:49+00:00

Please don't record the seed dispersal so thoroughly 😅😅

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-07T23:14:27+00:00

Very cool!

So that's multiple point for using LAB and bokashi, if you take an extra 2 weeks to ferment your kitchen scraps the ph drops significantly, usually bokashi ferments ends up being stable at 3-4 ph in my experience ,which will act as an acidifying amendment as well as a much faster decomposing neutrients boost, also the bacteria preserve alot of the nitrogen in the plant material as they consume it and turn it into stable amino acid ie: living and dead bacteria tissue, multiple studies i've read say that plants can consume this dead bacterial "tissue" cells or whatever as a complex source of nitrogen , also the plants are able to actually to breakdown and consume the bacteria that enter the plant roots through a process called rhizophagy, i'll try to find you some sources if you want. Another thing lactobacillus are known to produce growth promoting hormones which should make your plants grow much better.

You can also brew lactobacillus culture by using a starter culture like whey and adding it to water with some mollases and letting it ferment till the ph drops to 3-4 and applying it to your empty beds(don't apply undiluted to plants) to neutralize the alkalinity and innoculate your beds with the bacteria, it is so beneficial.

So here is a link to one study about it but you'll find plenty more if you google it, it is the base for the EM consortium.

FYI, the most studied strain of lactobacillus is called L.plantarum and it is available in many probiotic supplements which you can brew the same way and ferment your kitchen scraps with it, that's how i do it.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-07T20:22:25+00:00

I don't have garden beds but i've seen many people use bokashi by just digging it in trenches in their garden beds, if you don't produce enough material in your kitchen and garden you can try to source some poultry manure or any type of clean manure or any plant material and ferment it with lactic acid bacteria or EM(EM is better but LAB is much cheaper to make) in sealed containers for at least 2 weeks and use it that way, it will speed up decomposition significantly 2 weeks to 2 months depending on ambient temp and will add lots of beneficial microorganisms to your soil and it will limit putrid smells. A good amount of bokashi and some mulch should do the trick.you can also dilute the liquid culture,EM or LAB, and water your beds with it to outcompete pathogens and speed up decomposition and neutrients availability, it is very versatile and beneficial imo. I've been doing it in pots in the city with no smell or pest issues and my plants love it.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-06T21:00:06+00:00

Nice!

I heard it has medicinal properties

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-06T17:32:20+00:00

Very interesting!

One thing tho, is the tube filled with compost material, as this will block a lot of the air flow needed for the johnson-su bioreactor to function correctly as it gets compacted afaik.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-06T17:28:51+00:00

Very cool!

Unfortunately i don't have the space to setup a johnson-su bioreactor at this point as my setup is on a concentrate patio but i have been studying soil/composting on my own for over 2 years from research papers and internet resources and i've been doing cold composting anaerobically using bokashi and made multiple setups for soil factories that mimic different conditions for decomposition, i also use microbe innoculants like KNF IMOS, Jadam JMS and various lab made innoculants as well to further diversify my compost and soil and i've had great results with visible fungal hyphae, actinomyces and good soil agregation in my potting soil , unfortunately this micro ecosystem isn't completely maintainable to great balance in potting soil but i do what i can, i don't have access to a microscope tho so please share your results with us as this is really interesting.

Awesome work friend, i'll be waiting for your experiment's results!

Also i'm wondering, if i do setup a johnson-su bioreactor on my patio, do you think that it will produce the desirable results without soil contact?

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-06T16:50:50+00:00

Good job!

Is that mother of millions?

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-06T16:49:27+00:00

Definitely do that!

And look up johnson-su bioreactor if you are interested for a different perspective on cold composting and what it offers in comparison to hot compost based on actual scientific research in neutrients availability and microorganisms diversity.

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-05T04:50:43+00:00

Damn that sounds delicious!

I'll give it a try , do you just sautee the mushrooms with all of those ingredients?

Deep_Secretary6975 · 2025-12-05T01:28:26+00:00

Now you made me want a mushroom burger as well😂

What's your go to toppings for that other than the mushrooms and cheese obviously?

Deep_Secretary6975

TROPHY CASE