How to Make an Inexpensive Bokashi Bucket

Learn how to make an easy and inexpensive bokashi bucket at home to ferment food scraps for compost with a regular 5-gallon bucket, lid, and a drill.

May 4, 2025 · 1 min · 102 words · Alison Contreras

Table of Contents

Cover the Bucket

Cover the bucket with a tight-fitting lid.

Usually, you will find matching lids near the buckets in the home center.

Start Filling the Bucket

Start adding your food scraps and bokashi inoculant to the bucket.

Bokashi bucket with food scraps being poured in from cutting board

The Spruce / Adrienne Legault

This layer is what stops you from smelling the food as it ferments.

Addfood scrapsas you collect them.

When the bucket is nearly full, let it ferment for 10 days without opening the lid.

Materials and tools to create an inexpensive bokashi bucket

The Spruce / Adrienne Legault

White bucket flipped over with holes drilled on bottom

The Spruce / Adrienne Legault

Bucket with drilled holes on bottom inserted into another white bucket

The Spruce / Adrienne Legault

Tight-fitting lid placed over top of bokashi bucket

The Spruce / Adrienne Legault

Vegetable scraps and bokashi inoculant poured into bucket

The Spruce / Adrienne Legault