Bokashi bins smell way worse than people admit on here

I keep seeing folks saying bokashi is odorless if you do it right but that hasn't been my experience at all. I've been running a bokashi system in my studio apartment near Chicago for about 8 months now and even with the spigot closed tight and carbon filters swapped every month it still gets a sour fermented funk that fills the whole place. The liquid that drains out smells like rotten beer gone bad and one time a bag split while I was carrying it to the curb. Has anyone else dealt with that smell sticking around for days?

2 comments

2 Comments

pat_hart1mo ago

My neighbor's hot compost pile caught fire once, started smoldering at 3am and the whole alley smelled like burnt coffee grounds and regret for a week. I figure if something's decomposing in a sealed bucket in your living space, there's gonna be some funk no matter how fancy the setup is. That sour beer smell you're describing sounds about right for the lactobacillus doing its thing, maybe just air it out on the fire escape before you open it up next time.

viola1711mo ago

Wait so your neighbor actually had a compost pile that caught fire? What kind of setup was it - like just a pile in the yard or one of those tumbler things? I've heard of spontaneous combustion in big piles but never seen it happen. Did the fire department have to come out or did they smother it themselves? I'm trying to picture how hot it must have gotten for that to happen, especially at 3am.