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Making EM Bokashi (Compost)

Storing and Using EM Bokashi

Bottle Labels, Labeling, Uses and Local Regulations and Laws (a big one!)
plus National, State/Province Regulations and Regulatory Compliance 

EM, Antioxidant Activity, and EM-X

A few of the uses for EM culture and products which are discussed herein may be contrary to regulatory rules or guidelines in your country, state, province, county or region.  Further, some practices may be frowned upon by qualified health professionals, and some practices could be dangerous to human health, or could be dangerous to animal health (or crop health!) if performed or processed incorrectly.  This site and these pages are offered for educational and informational purposes only.  If you choose to use EM or any other microbial inoculant products in any way for any application, you must first check with your local and national authorities to determine if your planned use complies with all applicable rules, regulations and requirements.  If you choose to use EM for any purposes involving human ingestion (or placement upon skin, etc.), I recommend that you first research all relevant information available in the literature and on the web carefully, and review the recommendations in the regulatory guidelines for your country or region.  Further, if brewing EM products for human or animal consumption, you will also wish to employ common sense and careful techniques.

Any statements and opinions offered in these pages are my opinions only offered in reportorial and informational mode, and do not reflect in any way the views of any creators, producers, distributors, marketer or vendors of various EM-type cultures or products. Please note that I (the author) am not in any way associated with any of the above-referenced persons or organizations, although I may occasionally perform consulting for some companies, entities and individuals in the EM field.  All opinions and statements remain my own reportage and opinions, and at times my opinions and/or practices may differ wildly from those of the various creators, producers, distributors or vendors of EM products or EM-like products.

Bokashi, if you recall, is a composted material produced by EM culturing of bran (or other substances, including agricultural or other wastes.)  The name is often used as well for the compost produced by fermenting kitchen wastes in a bucket; the only difference here is that the quality of the stuff put in the bucket may not have been as high nor clean as a bokashi made from food-grade bran and other food-grade materials, and the intended use for the bokashi batches may be different.

Making Bokashi for Animal Feed 
These instructions and hints are geared toward making a pure, clean, "sanitary" bokashi from bran (or bran and granulated kelp), rather than a more hit-or-miss (and "dirty") kitchen waste composter, which pretty much takes care of itself, so long as it is regularly inoculated with EM.

To make EM Bokashi for use in mixing (3% to 5%) with livestock or poultry feed, or for sprinkling on animal wastes and on the ground in animal pens, or for seeding compost or solid, take Activated EM (aka EM Extension), mix 1:1:100 with molasses and water, and add slowly to wheat bran (or rice bran), with perhaps some granulated kelp, a bit of sea salt, and a bit of Azomite rock dust as well (all optional), and stir THOROUGHLY until the material is about 30% moist.  The EM folks say that it should be moist enough to form a clump which sticks together if you squeeze some in your hand, but should be dry enough to crumble again when touched lightly.  I find that this works best myself.  This moistened mixture of bran (or bran and kelp, etc.) is then placed in an airtight container to ferment anaerobically for 5 to 14 days, depending upon temperatures (cooler takes longer...).  How to make an airtight container?  Read the section below...., but first, some practical tips on making bokashi:

Tips and Hints
These hints are geared, as are the paragraphs above, toward making a pure, clean "sanitary" bokashi from bran (or bran and kelp), rather than a more hit-or-miss kitchen waste composter, which pretty much takes care of itself, so long as it is regularly inoculated.

• I usually mix bokashi in a 2 gallon, 3 gallon, 5 gallon or 6 gallon round plastic bucket
• I recommend using a bucket of at least 2 gallons in size, to allow adequate room for materials
• IMPORTANT!  Fill the container only half-full of dry bran (and any other additives, such as kelp granules, salt, rock dust!)
• if you have added kelp, sea salt, or rock dust to the dry bran, it is very important to mix that in well with the bran, while still dry, before adding the liquid slowly.
• You must only half-fill the bucket, because the material may expand up to 20% as you add the water/EM/molasses mix, and you need "head room" so that you can easily stir the material without spilling it all over the floor!
• if you live in a temperate zone, and need hints on how to keep your batches of bokashi warm in order to accelerate brewing, please see the sub-section within the Making Activated EM (aka EM Extension) section entitled "Keeping Batches of AEM or Bokashi Warm in a Cold Climate"

Checking to See if Done
As mentioned above, bokashi may take anywhere from 3 days (about 97 degrees F) to 5 or 6 days (about 91 degrees F), to over 10 to 14 days (72 to 80 degree F range.) When the Bokashi is done, it should have a wonderful, clean, sweet and sour smell.  If you smell a putrid odor, then the moisture level was too high and butyric acid was developed during fermentation, and the batch should be discarded, the bucket cleaned, and the process started again. Likewise, any fuzzy molds or smelly molds indicate that something went wrong. The EM folks stress that it is indeed perfectly alright to see some fungal mycelium (fine threadlike fungus, white to off-white) in the finished bokashi, but you should not see fuzzy molds.  I have been lucky; I have made twelve batches (each from 1 gallon to 4 gallons in volume) of bokashi (some for human use, some for animal feed, some for treating animal wastes) in my first few months of using EM organisms, and each has turned out very well.

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Storage
Once your bokashi is finished, store it in a cool, dark place. If stored totally or nearly anaerobically, under the same conditions (anaerobic) as it was made, it will keep many months, and will actually improve with time.  EM Bokashi, when stored in its moist state, but not anaerobically (in other words, not sealed) will keep for about 2 weeks at 78 degrees or above, about 3 weeks or longer at 68 to 70 degrees, and much longer at cooler temperatures.  If dried and then stored dried, it will keep for at least 2 months at 78 degrees or above, and longer at cooler temperatures. 

Uses
I suggest mixing a bit of EM bokashi with feed for your livestock or poultry each day; the official EM channels recommend 4% to 5% of EM by volume be added to feed.  Be careful if you have poultry; if the bokashi is used in the damp form, it could conceivably encourage the nearby grains to get moldy in warm weather, and most birds (chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, etc.) do not tolerate the presence of "bad" molds in their feed well; this can be fatal.  A lot of EM organizations recommend, therefore, that you use only dried bokashi for supplementing poultry feed, and that you do not use damp bokashi for this purpose when feeding birds.  Despite the warning from the EM folks, I personally do not have the time or patience to dry bokashi for poultry feed, and therefore I do add damp bokashi to my poultry feed (mixed cracked grains, often called "scratch") on a daily basis.  So far, I have had no problem -- all the feed is consumed within the next 12 hours, and there is little left.

If you are even considering eating a tiny amount of bran or bran/kelp powder bokashi as a (human) nutritional supplement, please do so at your own risk and be sure that the batch is relatively young and fresh, and that the stuff smells clean, sweet and sour, and please start with only very tiny amounts! 

Bokashi may also be crumbled and dispersed over animal wastes, soil in gardens or in animal pens, or on compost, to drastically change the micro-flora.

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Brief Introduction
In case you have not noticed, our modern world has become quite complex, with literally thousands of regulatory agencies and laws at the national, state, provincial or regional level, and even at the city or town level.  Not so surprisingly, in many countries and regions, these regulations may specify exactly what may or may not be: 

• ingested by humans
• fed to livestock or pets
• used in production of food-producing animals
• applied to soils
• applied to wastes (e.g., agricultural, yard, household or animal wastes) 
• sprayed in the air
• applied to septic tanks or other bulk liquid waste processing tanks

Culture Uniformity Across All Labels
As already stated in two earlier sections, from a microbiological point of view, all the cultures in each and every EM1 (aka EM-1, etc.) label (no, we are not talking about EM2, EM3 and EM4, which are still sold in some countries) is identical, and regardless of what certain stores may try to tell you. Read this closely: 

• Identical cultures across all bottle labels! 
• Identical cultures across all bottle labels!
• ...sorry for getting so strident, but this addresses a recurring myth! 

An Example of Regulations, Claims Uses, and Labeling
An example follows for the USA only, but is applicable almost anywhere: due to the many federal (usually EPA or FDA, sometimes USDA) laws and regulations and certification requirements, EMRO USA has recently (late 2002) been forced to change the labels on their EM·1 bottles. By the way, the new prefix for EM1 is now really  EM·1, where the floating dot, unfortunately, while it can be reproduced on web pages and in MS Word and some other word processors, cannot be reproduced in text (non-HTML) e-mail messages and even in some HTML e-mail as well.  So, if you ever notice that someone appears to have typed EM?1, that means they typed  EM·1, but that their email client (or yours) represents the dot as a question mark.

Getting back to the EM bottles sold in the USA, for now, due to regulatory compliance issues, EMRO USA will be selling only three labels, as of late 2002:

• EM·1 Soil Amendment (approval currently secured for use in 13 states; may actually be legal in far more... the approvals are still in process)
• EM·1 Waste Treatment: For Septic Systems (salable in 45 states, and may be legal in more; some approvals are still in process)
• EM·1 Waste Treatment (salable in 48 states)

Of course, as time passes, and as EMRO USA goes thru more certification and compliance steps (often expensive licenses...) more and more states will appear on the "okay to buy" lists for each label.  There is a good chance that there may even eventually be a label reading "Human Use".

So, bottom line: Unless I am feeling that I must fanatically comply with state regulations on what label I should really be using, I buy any EM label the vendor will sell me -- it does not matter at all -- as long as the stuff has not passed expiration date, and I use the same bottle for everything: animal feed, animal water, animal waste, household, human use, ingestion, making weird monatomic mineral supplements, etc.

An Example Set in the USA -- Animal Feed
Under FDA rules, it is technically illegal to administer EM and EM products to any animal in the USA, since its use in animal feed is not yet approved; this is simply because of the fact that in a mechanized farming operation, animals would not have the ability to choose freely whether to ingest EM.  There is a good chance that EMRO will eventually be able to comply with various certification requirements of the FDA, and therefore gain approval for the use of EM in animal feed.

The reality is the FDA (or USDA) is extremely unlikely to come after someone who chooses to fed this stuff to their dog, cat or livestock or other animals.  The reality is that in the USA we live in a fairly free society, and people, once they have purchased a product, are largely free to do whatever they wish with it, regardless of what the label said or did not say.  However, a vendor or marketer is in a very different position: the FDA would come down very hard on them if they did any of the following:

• recommended a technically-illegal practice
• intimated that such a use of their product would be helpful
• marketed their product as suitable for that illegal use
• labeled their product as suitable for that illegal use.

So, the Bottom Line Is....
The actual reality of EM use in the USA (continuing the example above, since the USA is one of the few countries where its use in animal feed is not yet approved) is that MANY folks use it, with great results, in animal feed and water, and continue to do so, just as do many farmers across the world.  Many private EM consultants in the USA continue to recommend EM for these purposes, as do many organic farming and beyond organic (or uber organic) farming consultants (but notice, they are not vendors of EM, but rather independent!.....)   That does not stop thousands of small American farmers and pet-owners from feeding it to their animals, and frankly, the FDA does not care about that. 

Likewise, many humans in the USA and across the world continue to ingest EM every day, and the FDA could care less about that.  Since FDA rules are different for humans and animals, it is actually legal for a vendor to market EM for human consumption, so long as all ingredients used in the fermented product were food-grade and recognized as safe. 

One point which Dr. Higa and other advocates of EM have repeatedly asserted is that the EM organisms (in anaerobic fermentation) produce a plethora of antioxidant substances which are beneficial to humans and animals (and to soil, ponds, streams, etc.).  Dr. Higa goes further, and asserts that while "undesirable" decay bacteria are primarily oxidative in their activities, the organisms in EM are primarily reducing (antioxidant) in their activities, and thus help to preserve and amplify healthful and coherent life-enhancing energies and patterns in water and other substances. Indeed, it has been noted many times by Dr. Higa and the EMRO organization that even Activated EM (aka EM Extension) liquid is loaded with antioxidants, and it must be noted that some folks in Japan and the USA (and elsewhere!) brew Activated EM to ingest as an antioxidant and probiotic health drink.  It has also been asserted and noted by the EMRO organization and EM users, as well as this researcher, that even when Activated EM (AEM) has passed 30 to 60 days in age and potentially lost some of the viability of the culture, it still remains a potent antioxidant liquid with a shelf life -- so long as it is kept airtight and in relatively anaerobic conditions -- of many years.  Indeed, research in my laboratory and elsewhere -- and this has been confirmed by many folks who have worked with EM, including students of Dr. Higa -- shows that for as long as fermentation continues, the antioxidant (aka reducing) potency of the EM-1 or AEM steadily increases, and, of course, concomitantly, the pH will continue to decrease, however slowly.

A Brief list of Antioxidants and Related Nutrients Produced by EM1
Some of the antioxidants and related nutrients which have been found in EM1 and EM1 products such as EM-X by researchers, as quoted by Dr. Higa, EMRO Japan and others, have been : 

• Inositol 
• Ubiquinone 
• Quinones 
• Saponins 
• low molecular-weight polysaccharides (these have been documented to have a wide range of interesting and healthful properties) 
• polyphenols 
• chelated minerals, including trace minerals

A More Detailed List of Antioxidants and Nutrients Likely to be Found in EM1 and Related Products
Recently I had reported on my raw foods e-mail list group some of the healthful experiences (increases in robustness, health, stamina and vitality) which I have found in ingesting human brew versions of Activated EM and especially, my most recent batch of homemade EM-X-like brew, which I have called GoldenBran Kelp brew. While not an overly-analytic person, I eventually did some further research on the antioxidants and other nutrients present in EM, and I decided to go well beyond the assertions made by Dr. Higa about the presence of certain healthful substances, and instead I performed a massive survey of the peer-reviewed scientific literature for the substances produced by the organisms in EM when in anaerobic fermentative mode.  The results of my search exceeded my wildest imaginings... I now realize why I have recently -- since starting to consume AEM and BKMC -- cut way back on my intake of nutritional antioxidant supplements (as guided by my body sense and intuition). Here, below, are some of my findings; please note that nutrient brews made with good-quality wheat bran or rice bran will be even higher in many of these agents than the impressively strong levels found in AEM and similar brews.

The three phototrophic organisms alone in the AEM produce a whole slew of incredibly powerful antioxidants, and it appears that the yeast and lactic acid bacteria produce a few more. Some of the nutrient compounds created by the phototrophic organisms under a wide variety of growth conditions include immune-enhancing complexes, and powerful nutrients, some of which (ALA, COQ10, chlorophylls, beta-glucans, carotenoids, indoles [remember the anti-cancer stuff in broccoli?], octacosanol, DMSO, butryrates (the potent antioxidant found in raw butter), lycopene, vitamin B-12, canthaxanthin, zeaxanthin, glutathione, etc.) would cost a small fortune in a nutritional supplement store; some of the compounds are alleged also to have anti-fatigue and anti-diabetic properties as well.  A more complete analysis follows:

The three phototrophic reducing organisms in the EM formula for the USA are the following Rhodobacter (formerly Rhodopseudomonas; synonyms: "Rhodobacillus" and "Rhodomonas") species:

• R. spheriodes
• R. capsulata 
• R. palustris 

All three purple non-sulphur bacteria are capable of producing hydrogen in anaerobic conditions, all seem to contribute to the production of the primeval hydrogen ion (hydride) antioxidant species during fermentation (as is found in MegaHydrin and also in alkaline electrolyzed reduced water, or ERW), and all seem to contain and to make a wide range of more complex biochemical antioxidants and related nutrient substances, including (and this is straight from the peer-reviewed scientific literature.....): vitamin C, lots of B vitamins, antivirals, bacteriochlorophyll, carotenoids (incl. lycopenes, zeaxanthin and a novel purple carotenoid called rhodobacterioxanthin), cobalamin (aka vitamin B12), retinols (related to vitamin A), peroxidase species, oxidoreductase species, reductase enzyme species, methionine side chain species, quinones, ubiquinone (aka coenzyme Q10), flavonoids,  superoxide dismutase species, catalase-peroxidase species (powerful antioxidants), dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO, a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory), alpha lipoic acid (ALA or lipoic acid), tocopherols (aka vitamin E),  glutathione, alpha and beta glucans (immune-boosting, antioxidant and anti-diabetic), indoles (remember the anti-cancer antioxidants found in cruciferous veggies?), octacosanol, 3-hydroxybutyrate and related hydroxybutyrates (antioxidants and mitochondrial energy substances), powerful isothiocyanate antioxidants,  inositol, (likely) enantiomers which may be potent anti-diabetic and antioxidant factors, and (likely) quercetin.

Of course, the yeast and lactic acid bacteria in the brew also produce a wide range of antioxidants and anti-fatigue (and even anti-diabetic) agents as well, including  glutathione and a zillion others, and this production is likely potentized drastically by the hydrogen-rich reducing environment offered by the phototrophic organisms.

Summary of Conventional Antioxidant Properties
We have, so far, all realized that at least some of the benefits are that it acts as a very beneficial probiotic and also a powerful source of biochemical antioxidants - that is, complex chemical compounds which must be manufactured by life forms (usually vascular plants or microorganisms.)

Other Antioxidants -- the Primeval Hydrogen Ion (Hydride species) Antioxidant
The current author, also a (credentialed) scientist and researcher, has been able to develop very strong evidence that EM1 also produces, during "normal" anaerobic and near-anaerobic fermentation, ample amounts of the primitive, primeval hydrogen ion (aka  hydride) antioxidant. (note: the descriptive terms "primitive" and "primeval" are used for this powerful antioxidant ion because it was the first antioxidant present on Earth, and pre-dated the appearance of any life forms on Earth.)  This ion, apparently contained in cages in the water structure, has strong reducing (antioxidant) properties, and is the same antioxidant hydrogen (hydride) ion found in so-called "alkaline ionized water" produced by water ionizers, which also first became popular in Japan over the past 40 years before spreading to the rest of the world.  The more correct, descriptive and accurate term for "alkaline ionized water", by the way, is "Electrolyzed Reduced Water", or ERW, and that is the term often used to denote such a liquid in the peer-reviewed scientific literature (witness the excellent articles by Dr. Shirahata over the past 6 years.) 

In any case, it appears at this time that, in addition to all the more complex biochemical antioxidants produced by EM1, some of which were listed above, EM1 fermentation also produces very large amounts of the same primitive, primeval antioxidant form of hydrogen found in ERW (the same stuff as produced by a water ionizer costing from $650 to $2,500).  This finding does, of course, make sense for "reducing" bacteria, since related strains of anaerobic organisms as found naturally occurring in nature have been reported (in the scientific literature) to be able, over time, to reduce the oxidative "damage" (measured by ORP) to water in deep wells, and instead shift it to a more reduced (antioxidant) value (meaning a lower ORP.)  One significant difference between EM1 and a water ionizer, however, is that EM1 does not use batteries, wires, electrodes and an electrical power supply to produce this primitive hydrogen antioxidant, but rather uses the complex relationship between synergistic beneficial microorganisms to create quantities of this antioxidant. 

If you wish to learn more technical details of this hydrogen antioxidant and its presence in EM1 and EM1 products, please proceed to the section below, entitled The Hydrogen Antioxidant in EM -- More Details . 

The Primeval Hydrogen (Hydride species) Antioxidant in EM -- More Details
You may or may not be aware that I have been researching the negative hydrogen ion as a powerful antioxidant nutrient for years, and that I have available a small research laboratory devoted to that and several other topics.  The negative hydrogen ion is found plentifully in unprocessed raw plant foods, unprocessed raw animal foods and some "wild" stream and well water (unfiltered, unprocessed).  For folks wishing to ingest it as a supplement, the hydrogen antioxidant has been available for a number of years in "alkaline ionized water" from water ionizers, and more recently, in Dr. Patrick Flanagan's product called MegaHydrin (also Active H-).  Why am I telling you all this?  Because, in about three paragraphs, I will be telling you something quite profound...

As I worked on this update to this webpage EM antioxidants earlier this afternoon (early February 2003) at the PC, I had to take some time off every hour or two to go into my lab and make some detailed measurements on some new batches of Activated EM (AEM) which I started about 28 hours earlier.  I had made up several batches, and one was very high in volcanic/sedimentary rock dust content, as it was what I called my "monatomic mineral" batch.  Due to my unique culturing and nutrient methods (most are described in the section entitled Making AEM/EM Extension, my one-gallon AEM jugs were bubbling merrily just 22 hours after I had started them, and at 26 hours, the pH had already dropped to 4.3, and I was able to start a series of antioxidant tests for the presence of hydrogen ion antioxidants in the AEM brewing in the jugs.  Briefly, when I had made my previous (at least six) batches of AEM in the past, I had noticed something really weird..... evidence that the EM was producing MASSIVE quantities of the primitive primeval hydrogen antioxidant known as the hydride ion (same antioxidant found in the so-called "alkaline ionized water" produced by expensive water ionizers!)  This time around, with my new batches, I had determined to carefully monitor that possibility and to control for some variables...... 

Well, I can now tell you that my AEM brews, at only 28 hours old, were not only merrily bubbling (pH now 4.21) along, but that each of the (cheap flimsy plastic 1-gallon water jugs) jugs of AEM showed very strong evidence that the organisms are producing a truly "reducing" (antioxidant) environment even on the atomic level, just as on the bio-chemical level.  For example, my AEM batch brewed for drinking (a bit of sea salt added, and one tbsp. of rock dust added) showed an ORP of -338 mv, which is amazing!  Stranger, my "monatomic" batch, which was similar to the nutritional batch but had 6 tbsp. of rock dust (Azomite, plus a bit of Pascalite) added as well, showed an ORP of -440 mv. 

What is weirder yet is that you must appreciate that these ORP measurements were made at a rather acid pH of 4.35.  As described by Nernst's law, ORP readings are interdependent upon pH, and thus, a fixed amount of hydrogen antioxidant (aka "reducing power") which would produce an ORP of -300 mv at a pH of 9.2 would read an ORP of only about +150 at a pH of 4.2, although the antioxidant ("reducing") power would remain the same.  Thus, it must be appreciated that for an ORP meter to show an ORP in the range of -330 or -430 mv at a pH of 4.4, the "reducing" (antioxidant) power of the AEM brew must be ENORMOUS. 

If you feel that you really must learn a bit more about the whole class of primitive primeval hydrogen ion-based (aka hydride) antioxidants, you may wish to take a look at the off-site link which follows: the author of this site also operates a website devoted to the primitive hydrogen antioxidants, called the H-minus Ion Website, at http://www.h-minus-ion.org .

Even though we have technically known that the EM organisms are technically "reducing" rather than oxidizing, this is strong evidence that the AEM brews contain even ample levels of the most primitive and primeval and ancient antioxidant in the world -- at the atomic level, and one which predates the existence of  all life forms on Earth -- the hydrogen (hydride) antioxidant.  More fascinating yet, in 24 hours of brewing, my AEM jugs have produced reduced water (well, antioxidant liquid) with a reducing measurement better than any counter-top water ionizer other than a $2,400 batch device.

Update -- Further Observations on Reducing Activity and ORP in AEM Brews
I have found that the ORP of batches such as described above (brewed with freshly Activated EM, and at relatively high temperatures, such as 94 to 100 degrees F) often usually drops again within 24 hours of peaking (usually at about -500 mv), first to the -100 mv. range, then to about zero, and then will slowly, over the next two months, rise to about +140 mv (less if stored totally anaerobically; this ORP reading may vary from batch to batch dependent upon a number of variables.)  On the other hand, I have made several batches of AEM (using less active starter cultures and lower brewing temperatures in the 87 degree F range) where the ORP fell to the -400 range within 60 hours of starting, and stayed below -165 for another 7 days before slowly starting to rise again.  The variables affecting how long the ORP will remain in a strongly reducing (low ORP) area seem to be:

• degree to which an anoxygenic (anaerobic) is maintained, versus some degree of aerobic brewing
• activity and vigor of starter culture
• brewing temperature
• whether sea salt was added, as well as quantity
• whether rock dusts (minerals) were added, as well as quantity
• type and quantity of molasses used

I have been able to observe that the recession of ORP after the strong reducing peak will be all the more accelerated if you are allowing some aerobic activity  (via air/oxygen entering the brew) by opening the container daily and taking ORP or pH measurements. Indeed, a way to maximize the strongly negative ORP is to brew the AEM in the following manner:

• brew in thick glass-wall containers with some type of pressure release valve in the cap which will vent at about 2 to 4 psi, well before the bottle might explode from internal pressure
• keep contents of bottle as anaerobic as possible -- exclude air and oxygen
• allow to ferment for at least a week (at about 90 F) before opening
• but, lastly, do not panic if the ORP does drop from its peak; as related above, it appears that this reducing environment is actually providing raw materials to allow the microorganisms to build more complex bio-chemical antioxidants (ubiquinone, quinones, polyphenols, inositol, etc.) within the brew, so nothing is lost!

Accuracy, Care and Cleaning of ORP and pH Meter Electrodes
Those working with EM may often wish to use digital pH or ORP meters to assess the progress, stage or performance of their EM or AEM brew.  Such digital meters employ electrodes (made of glass, plastic, metal and a reference liquid) for measurement, which are immersed in each sample to be tested.  Even under the very best of circumstances, ORP electrodes will experience some degradation of readings, often severe. Usually the first thing to suffer is measures of strongly negative ORP -- such readings will regress strongly toward the +200 range -- due to deposits on the electrode or even ion migration into the electrode insulator (more of a problem with plastic electrodes.)
To a somewhat lesser extent, the same is true of pH electrodes, and they will experience some degradation unless cleaned regularly.  Since pH is a logarithmic measure, the effect of dirty electrodes on pH readings will usually be far less severe than with ORP electrodes.
The whole area of cleaning ORP and pH electrodes is more of an art than a science.  I prefer not to delve deeply into the topic here, beyond saying that soaking an electrode in a mixture of 1 part chlorine bleach to 3 or 4 parts water (careful! such a mixture is hazardous to your skin and eyes!) for 8 minutes, followed by vigorous rinsing in cold or lukewarm water, followed by soaking for 20 minutes in a good volume of distilled water, will often help matters a lot.
For further information on care of ORP and pH electrodes, please see any of all of the following off-site webpages, which tell the story far better than I could:

http://www.eutechinst.com/techtips/tech-tips19.htm
http://www.hannacan.com/techsupport/advice_orp.htm
http://www.automatedaquariums.com/tecclean.htm

EM-X Antioxidant Supplement Liquid
The EMCO organization markets an antioxidant liquid supplement (microbe-free; via micro-filtering), made from a bran/kelp EM fermentation, which is claimed to be very high in important nutrients and antioxidants. This juice, named EM-X, is quite expensive, and yet some folks have reported some good results from it.  From what I can decipher from what is disclosed by the EM folks on the web, it appears that they manufacture EM-X by first making batches of rice bran, sea vegetables and other nutrients, and fermenting it anaerobically with EM for up to 3 months, followed by one more fermentation stage, and then by micro-filtering with a 0.22 micron filter (and some assert that it is sterilized by pasteurization as well.)  They reveal that they micro-filter the liquid and otherwise "process it" to remove all microorganisms.  This probably also drastically increases shelf life, plus, of course, there are then no "germs" left to scare off germ-phobic consumers who might not know any better. 

EM-X (pasteurized filtered version) box and bottle as marketed in Japan

Dr. Higa and the EMCO folks claim that the EM-X brew contains a whole wide range of antioxidants as well as a host of other beneficial substances from the rice bran, and indeed, that is the whole selling point of the EM-X liquid. 

I personally find EM-X to be way too expensive to use (and in any case, I have no significant health problems, and I eat a wonderful largely-raw and largely-Paleolithic diet) as it sells in the USA for about $70 per pint, and the recommended dosage is a minimum of one teaspoon per day.  Several EM enthusiasts whom I have met in the beyond-organic and uber-organic farming communities tend to view EM-X with scorn, saying that it is largely "dead", due to the micro-filtering and other forms of processing.  I tend to agree; while I am sure that EM-X does offer wonderful nutrients and benefits, I would much rather make my own "live" EM products here.  On the other hand, I must note that I have heard some wonderfully positive stories from many folks who have tried using commercially-available EM-X with good success.

EM-X2
I have learned as of February 2003 that there is now available, at least in Japan, a slightly lower-quality EM-X product named EM-X2, which sells for about 15% cheaper than the (very high-priced) EM-X.
 

For Techies and Scientists Only: Antioxidant Activity of EM versus ORP Measures
It appears to be true that the organisms in EM perform their digestion of substances largely via "reducing" (literally "antioxidant") activities rather than "oxidizing" activities, and it is also true that the EM organisms produce a wide range of antioxidants as they work and grow. If the brew is fermented in even a fairly anaerobic manner, you will always be able to observe (if you watch closely enough, with a good meter....) the ORP peak in the reducing direction to at least -340 to -550 mv (this excursion into a moderately strong reducing region will last from anywhere from 2 or 3 days to 8 days, depending upon a number of factors about the brew), before again slowly regressing toward zero or the low positive range. 

Please, however, bear in mind that this reducing (antioxidant) activity and the antioxidants themselves  may or may not show up as a persistent and consistently lower ORP (or negative ORP) of the Activated EM (aka EM Extension) liquid or other EM liquid products; it is often only primitive primeval hydrogen-ion-based antioxidants (aka primeval hydride antioxidants, such as "alkaline" ionized reduced water [aka ERW], or solid hydrogen/hydride supplemental products such as MegaHydrin, for the most part) which tend to drastically lower ORP of water and aqueous solutions, and even those forays decay over time (usually over a few days to two weeks.) In EM and AEM, the evidence is that the organisms in the brew are capturing and using much of the reducing power (as evidenced by the low ORP) in the liquid to use as fuel with which to build even more complex antioxidants (biochemical antioxidants...) and other nutrients.  The more sophisticated biochemical antioxidants (e.g., vitamin E, COQ10, quinones, ALA, etc.) made by living organisms tend to hold onto their H-ions too tightly (in complex biochemical molecules) to influence ORP much at all, so they will not influence ORP readings in a strongly reducing (negative) direction. 

Once again, however, even the temporary decreases (peaking usually between -340 and -550 mv) of ORP seen in the AEM (aka EM Extension) as it brews, are all the more amazing because the pH is constantly plummeting, and the final pH is very low, about 3.6. Nernst's Laws and Equations state that for a given amount of primitive hydrogen antioxidants available, the ORP will, essentially, read far higher at lower pHs than at high pHs.  In other words, ORP is a RELATIVE scale, interdependent with pH.... So, for example, a solution with an ORP of +200 at a pH of 3.6 can actually indicate as much (or more) reducing power as a solution with an ORP of -250 at a pH of 11.0.

As noted earlier, if you feel that you really must learn a bit more about the whole class of primitive primeval hydrogen ion-based (aka hydride) antioxidants, you may wish to take a look at the off-site link which follows: the author of this site also operates a website devoted to the primitive hydrogen antioxidants, called the H-minus Ion Website, at http://www.h-minus-ion.org .

For Radical Experimenters -- Making an EM-X-like Beverage
See the end of the section entitled Human Uses -- EM Products for Drinking, Bathing, Brewing an EM-X-like Antioxidant-rich and Nutrient-rich Probiotic Beverage (found on a later page in this series) for a few quick hints on how to make EM-X at home.  This sub-section will eventually be expanded into a complete section by itself. 
 

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