harry57, "The beauty of doing bokashi is that the material can remain fermenting in the bucket for long periods of time until you're ready to use it." Exactly! It IS beautiful! "smell a bit whiffy" bokashi is a pickling process, well not as in a salt pickling process, but similar results. I think bokashi made from meat, cabbage, radish, manure, or rose pedals should in theory all smell the same. I hope to catch your posts on bokashi burying in the Earth Machine. Maybe toss a couple pieces of biochar... Cowboy Brand Charcoal... the chaff or small pieces and dust would not be missed from the primo stuff. "Earth Machine" does material Really flow through that? How hard is it to harvest? Is it possible to only harvest stuff that was put in the front and the material on the bottom in the back just lives there forever landlocked? Hmmmm. If I was using an "Earth Machine" to finish bokashi I would dump the bucket into the top. Then there would be a choice of materials to top off with. Any of the carbon materials ever mentioned on any composting board including vermicomposting. Garden soil is an option. Poor soil. Bokashi is a moist material. Hmmmmm. Sounds like lots of fun options.

If it has never been used it has a factory oil coating. Needs a good cleaning with a degreaser. Most good dish soap should work. Hot, hot, water. My manual i run through the dishwasher but it is stainless. The grinding plate is not and needs oiling for storage. I always run something cheap through mine before every use...collard stems or a big carrot. The end of celery or an onion root end, a potato. I've even run leftover rice through. (Also a good way to start the cleaning process after grinding.) The time it sat may have reacted with the pot metal if it is not stainless. (?) If you have a KitchenAid the Chef'sChoice grinder works really well. We just use that one for burgers and small projects. If you are just grinding once a year it may take some time needing to cut up your meat so small but it does work really well. And no creepy oil residue. We just upgraded to good elec, a #22. It was expensive but it handles larger cuts and we use it about once a month. (we make our own dog food) For about 5 yrs we had a cheap one and it did ok and surprised it lasted so long but that puppy was loud and took a long time having a smaller feed tube. We had to cut up everything to smaller bits. I also hated that it was China made and finally died. The stem stripped out and would no longer hold in the gear box. Our manual is also a #22 and works really well but it is a bit of a work out. I do like that it can go in the dishwasher. It was an emergency purchase when our other one pissed out but will have a good home at our vacation home where we have many manual appliances. (power outages are common). I've ordered supplies from a few sites but not often enough to recommend. I can get casings for sausage in my neighborhood grocery meat butchers. My grinders from Amazon.

Wash it well. Do not oil it, the oil will eventually go rancid and leave you with one hell of a stinky mess. Make sure that it is very very dry, (putting it in a low oven is one way of making sure it won't rust), and store in a heavy zip lock plastic bag. One trick I have for helping keep moisture at bay is to add a 1 pound bag of rice to the bag, just pour it in. If you do it during humid times, dry the rice in the oven first. Another trick is to put about half a dozen mothballs in a cloth bag and put them in the bag. As the mothballs sublimate, they slightly pressurize the bag, which prevents moist air from entering. Do NOT do that if you keep your grinder in a cabinet with food products, especially not those that will absorb odors.

several years ago, sister had a little "found money" and bought a bunch of attachments for her KA stand mixer. on a trip up from VA to visit, she gifted me ones she didn't use... she kept the pasta roller/maker thing and uses that a lot. there was some sort of juicer that i thin might have been missing a part or 2. a pasta extruder that i could not get to work. and the meat grinder attachment. if i used it a lot, would want one made of metal instead of mostly plastic. one of the things i make is homemade REAL bacon bits. supermarket sells the odds & ends of the pricey slab bacon CHEAP. it's usually not very pretty but always tasty. i grind the raw bacon... sometimes semi-freeze ahead of time. then slowly render till done. it lasts forever in fridge and dirt cheap compared to the mystery bit or even real bacon bits. when i make a meatloaf, i like bacon on top. a layer of the ground bacon on top works really well. i often see the old-school, hand-crank grinders at thrift stores or yard sale for WAY less than $20.