If anyone is interested in 'Bokashi' composters, which accept cooked food scraps etc., but has been put off by the price, take a look at this:
http://www.recyclenow.com/applications/dynamic/hc_specialist_bins.rm?id=12248&shopcode=WRD/026/C
Only £24 pounds for a pair of bins and bran refills at £10 for 3. Plus, you get a £1 discount for ordering on-line!
I've placed my order today.
You can cut the cost of the bran significantly by making your own 1 250 ml bottle of EM1 & a 250ml bottle of molasses will be sufficient to innoculate 80kgs of bran you can buy both from this site for about £11 then you just need to get the wheat bran to go with it (bran is very cheap if you buy it in bulk quantities). The innoculated bran can be stored for 2 years.
http://www.thebluesun.co.uk/acatalog/em.html
I forgot to add there is a video of how to make the bran on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96fSXccQx9Q&eurl=
I bought a Bokashi from recycle now.
It took ages to arrive but finally got here last week.
Busily filling the first one now but I will let you know how it all goes!
Lottief
Is wheat bran the same as wheatgerm or are they two different things? I ask because I've just found a site that sells bulk quantities of wheatgerm.
Wheat bran is the outer shell of the wheat kernal wheatgerm is the embryo of the kernel. Either should work for making bokashi but the bran is usually slightly cheaper hence the reason it is normally used. Rice bran works too but can be harder to find.
Ths site has a recipe for making smaller quantities (5-10 litres) of innocculated bran. http://www.emshop.co.nz/howto-make_em-bokashi.html