Note: The following is a guest post by a Reencle super fan: Elisha Jones, originally posted here.
A little over a year ago, I bought an indoor composter. I live in a suburb with a small plot of land and I have a small vegetable garden. I decided I wanted to compost to add good, quality soil to my garden to feed my plants. I spent a long time researching composting methods and was ultimately unsuccessful due to a number of reasons. I am very restricted in composting due to the proximity of my neighbors and not wanting to draw any kind of rodents to the area. I also had a hard time comprehending the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio and how to be successful with that as I don’t have access to a lot of browns like leaves. The Lomi had just come out, and I was seeing a lot of ads for it, so I decided to research indoor composters. Ultimately, I decided on the Reencle Composter and I want to tell everyone who is considering this composter why I love it and why I recommend it.
Overview
The Reencle Prime is a home sized indoor composter created by Hanmi Flexible. It is about the size of a small trash can and can handle about 2.2 lbs of food per day. You can add all kinds of food waste, including meats and dairy, egg shells, and even some paper products. Everything you need is included in the initial kit. The machine keeps the internal area warm and turns a stirring rod to mix the microbe bed. The Reenclemicrobe™ is a self replicating microbial bed that breaks down the food waste, so you don’t need to buy more microbes. There are multiple filters on the machine to prevent any kind of external odor, and the initial package comes with two external filters, each good for about a year. The external filters themselves are able to be opened and the activated charcoal is able to be replaced, decreasing plastic waste! The machine is also quite. Whisper quiet. My fridge is louder when it is running and I cannot hear the Reencle at all. You can buy the Reencle outright, or Reencle can be rented through a program called “Reencle Flex”.
Reencle Prime can be found here: LINK.
Reencle Flex can be found here: LINK
My Experience
I am a person who likes to make sure that what I am buying does what it claims, and it was no different with the Reencle. I must say that I am thoroughly impressed with the Reencle team for putting up with answering all my questions and all their assistance. I learned a lot about their microbes and how the machine works, but I won’t bore you all with that lengthy set of details. What you want to know is, does the compost work? After collecting some compost and following the instructions, I mixed it with other soil and allowed it to cure (much like Bokashi composting). I then started some jalapeno pepper seeds. The seedlings were separated into a control group and a test group, both of which had the same starting soil used. The test group was provided 1 Tbsp of Reencle compost mixture mixed into its soil, and I measured the change in growth over time. The test group came out on top (picture below shows the control group on the left and test group on the right). So overall, I was impressed with the results here.
Next, I took a larger amount of Reencle Compost, mixed in soil, and tilled it into my garden beds where it was allowed to sit for over a week before I planted my plants. The soil was amazingly rich when I dug into it. I didn’t add any other fertilizers to the plants during the season and I had an excellent harvest through the year overall. I am impressed with the Reencle and am very happy with it and the results I have experienced. It has made it extremely easy for me to compost in my little home in the suburbs. I don’t have to fret over C:N ratios, turning, and temperature monitoring. The machine just does the work for me. I just plop food scraps and cut up paper towel rolls in and it is gone. The microbes are able to break down foods quickly, with some being broken down within 24 hours, this of course, depends on the amount of fiber and complexity of the food item. I have put in cut up paper towel rolls in the machine that were gone in about a week. The longest item I encountered was dehydrated fruit that took about a month to fully disappear.
Tips & Tricks
In conclusion, I would like to leave off with some tips and suggestions from my experience with the machine for those of you who have one.
Join the Facebook Group-There are a lot of helpful owners on the page and the Reencle customer service team monitors the site if someone needs assistance as well.
Start off slow-I know you are excited to jump right in and make compost, but this is a culture you are growing, much like a sourdough starter. You have to start off feeding small amounts and increase over time. Overfeeding can result in a clumpy, wet looking mess. If this happens, hit the dry button and stop feeding for a few days. Over the course of my ownership, I have had times where I just noticed it looking a little off or smelling of vinegar, and I just slowed down or even stopped what I was putting in, scooped the compost around in the machine, and allowed the microbes to catch up.
*Reencle has a youtube channel with a video on how to fix clumpy, greasy looking microbes if needed.
In the beginning, you may be adding water almost daily-If the compost is dusty, it is too dry. You want it to be moist, almost like a damp sand. So if it is dry, add a cup of water. Eventually, the water need will subside and you won’t have to water as often.
Start a maintenance routine-I occasionally scoop out the corners towards the middle of the machine. The stirring rods don’t get all the way into the corners so things will get stuck there. I also clean out the internal filter and wipe down the exposed sides in the machine whenever I empty out the compost. This keeps the machine from growing mold on the sides, molds like darkness, warmth, and damp too.
Using a Sieve is helpful-I am adding to the machine daily, and because I do, I use a sieve when collecting compost to filter out things that are not decomposed yet so I can place them back into the machine.
Allow the compost to cure-The compost is meant to cure for best results, much like Bokashi composting. So while you can use it within a couple days of allowing it to dry, allowing it to sit for a few weeks is better. The Reencle compost can sometimes clump together, so just break it up and rework into the soil mix as you go.
You can store some compost as a backup-I actually tried this. I took about a gallon bag amount of compost out, let it dry, and stored it. I had emptied and turned off the machine for about a month before putting the stored compost back into the machine, added water, and slowly added food back, and the microbes work fine.
