Before you head off to your local home improvement store, canvass local eateries for cast-off buckets, or start rooting around your garden shed for raw materials, here are a few things to consider.
How much kitchen waste are you producing?
Beginner bokashi kits for home users have buckets that hold anywhere from 2.5 to 5 gallons of kitchen waste (minus the void in some buckets where the "tea" collects). If you are a keen gardener or you frequently cook plant-based meals at home for a large family, a 2.5-gallon bucket is going to fill up quite quickly.
In my two-person cook-at-home vegetarian household, it takes us at least a couple of weeks to fill up a 2.5-gallon bucket with our kitchen scraps. Buckets that fill up too slowly tend to start purifying because they are being opened frequently during the filling process. If in doubt about sizing, go smaller.
Most of the DIY bucket tutorials out there use 5-gallon buckets, but the principles can be adapted to smaller reused food service buckets (most restaurants have them in abundance) or repurposed cat-litter buckets (what I use).
If you're having trouble filling up your bucket quickly enough, you can add yard clippings/garden waste to your bucket (I don't opt to do this as I compost my yard/vegetable garden waste in place or in static piles), but there is no reason why any plant matter added to bulk out your kitchen scraps won't ferment just fine.
Whatever size bucket you use, remember you will need at least two of them, one you are adding to and one which is resting. A completely full bokashi bucket needs to rest for about two weeks (possibly less in warm weather and probably longer if the bucket is kept in a very cool place).
For large families and food service establishments, you may need to keep many buckets in rotation.
Do you want to collect the bokashi leachate?
Despite how commercial buckets are designed, separating and collecting the bokashi "tea" that leaches out during the fermentation process is not necessary.
Many gardeners swear by using the bokashi juice as a fertilizer, but if that's not something you want to mess with, there's no need to collect it at all.
Not collecting the leachate eliminates the need for a spigot on your bucket, although you can still collect the leachate even without a spigot if you use two nested buckets. Simply take the top bucket (that has holes drilled in the bottom) apart from the lower bucket and pour off the leachate that has collected in the bottom bucket.
The simplest system of all requires no nesting of buckets, installation of spigots, or drilling of holes. You can avoid draining the bokashi "tea" at all if you opt to use enough dry materials to soak up the leachate as it is produced.
All you absolutely have to have to contain bokashi compost is a couple of buckets with tight-fitting lids.
I use shredded paper lightly inoculated with EM from an ordinary spray bottle. You could also use extra bran, cardboard, sawdust, etc. Any absorbent material that is non-toxic and biodegrades at least the same rate as kitchen waste will work.
The DIY Bokashi Bucket Tutorials
5-Gallon Bucket with Grit Guard and Spigot
This DIY version of the bokashi bucket requires a power drill (and a large bit) to make. Materials: 5-gallon bucket with a tight-fitting lid, grit guard (sized for 5-gallon bucket), and a plastic spigot.
Nested 5-Gallon Buckets with Leachate Collection Reservoir
This DIY version of the bokashi bucket requires a power drill (and a small bit) or a soldering iron to make small holes. Materials: two 5-gallon buckets, one tight-fitting lid, a small piece of fabric, brick, a scrap of foam or plastic the diameter of the bucket.
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