Smallest setup for composting on balcony (odorless if possible)?

Everytime i emptied the kitchen scraps into the bin i feelt like i should compost,
after i reading "Teaming up with microbes" i think i need to compost,
and after if discovered powdery mildew (thanks to Bihai Il for ID!)on my raspberries i KNOW that i need to compost.
Primarily because i need the actively aeriated compost tea.

So the amount of produced compost does not have to be high,
and initial cost for buying/building the setup and ongoing maintenance don't matter munch to me.

However i only have my balcony which gives me two severe limitations:
It should be as small as possible.
It should not smell or be hazadorous in any other way (too often i have seen compost with mold on it),
as i want to spend time on the balcony.

If you've only got a small space, I'd recommend vermicomposting.  You can do it with a smallish bin whereas composting generally requires a big pile to work effectively.

My worm bins do smell a bit, but it's mostly an earthy smell and you wouldn't have any issues with smell on a balcony.

Here are some thread about Bokashi since it is a small system:

https://permies.com/t/11246/bokashi

https://permies.com/t/78784/Bokashi-Composting

https://permies.com/t/105926/bokashi-bucket

https://permies.com/t/137408/Quickest-Easiest-bokashi-home-Experienceshttps://permies.com/t/138556/Bokashi-Nutrient-Cycling-Homesteads

https://permies.com/t/117807/ungarbage/food-scraps



Source

I have been composting for over a year now, and the majority of that time was in a 1 bedroom apartment. Like someone already mentioned vermicomposting is a great way to start. I have one of the bigger Tupperware containers, it's probably close to 3 feet long, maybe a got wide and a foot tall. I bought a $20ish dollar thing if redworms from uncle Jim's worm farm online and now they have probably quadrupled in quantity. I put food in every few days and even when I'm in the same room as it I can't smell it.

I have some holes drilled on the lid and around the container that I stuffed full with polyfill, which is essentially synthetic cotton. They say it's good because mold doesn't grow on it. I'm not sure it's even required to fill the holes with polyfill because over the last few weeks my dog has been pulling it all out and so far none have crawled out.

Anyway, hope you get started and maybe show us some progress pictures when you do. Have a good day and good luck!

I have had variable success with worm farms on balconies and other exposed spots.  It depends on whether you can keep them happy in your (micro)climate.
But I recently joined something called "Sharewaste" - matchmaking those with waste with those who can use them (worm or otherwise).  Someone brings me a full bucket each week, and I just add it to my own.  I'd be more than happy to draw off a bag of vermicompost for them to take home and make their tea with.

The first person who started bringing me scraps (walking across town for one banana peel and green teal leaves in a small pastry bag) got chatting to me, and I ended up I helping her make her own vermicompost bin out of upcycled packaging materials instead, and being her "worm phone-a-friend" for a few weeks while she worked it all out.

I think bokashi is probably not suitable for compost tea, as it is anerobic.

Having read the Humanure handbook in the meantime i wonder how it impacts
the composts suitability for compost tea when there is no thermophilc stage because
the compost is too small. The author said for compost to reliably undergo a thermophilic
phase  it needs to be at least a cubic metre in size.


However here is my current plan:

Get a big mortar trough and fill it with earth.
Get two buckets and drill a lot of holes in them from all sides/bottom that
are big enough for worms to pass through.
Burry both buckets into the mortar trough, deep enough so that the holes
i drilled are covered in earth, but they should not be on the bottom of the mortar through,
there should still be eart below them and of course it should be possible to put the lid on/ take it off.

Then fill one bucket with the content of an existing compost pile to inoculate
the system and close it with a lid.

The other bucket can than be filled with the waste stream from the kitchen.

As both buckets have a lid, the air exchange happens through the earth surrounding
the buckets, therefore any odor should not be percieved and flies cannot get to it.

Also the mortar through can be planted.
Any suggestion what to plant?

Any other comments?

It sounds like you've got a solid plan for micro composting. I would encourage you to look at adding a bokashi fermentation step before kitchen waste goes into the worm area. From what I've seen, the fermented food scraps are highly prized by worms and are absolutely attacked and devoured. Much faster than my old dedicated worm bin for dealing with kitchen scraps.