Hi everyone. I've been working on making my own lacto serum, similar to the expensive EM1 product. Sorry if this info has already been shared here.
First, take a 1/4 cup of rice and shake it in 1 cup of warm water until the water gets cloudy.
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This is harvesting the starch from the rice that will attract beneficial bacteria from the air into the water. Strain and keep the rice rinse water, and discard the rice. You can add the used rice to your compost pile so it doesn't go to waste. Microbes and whatnot love rice.
Keep the starchy water in a jar under your sink for a week or two to attract the bacteria we are seeking. After the wait period I drain off and keep the top 95 percent of the water and leave the thick white sludge that has formed at the bottom. We don't need that part.
Now, for every one part rice water, add 10 parts milk. So for 1 cup water it takes 10 cups of milk. Any type of milk is fine. I just filled a mason jar to the top and called that good enough. It doesn't have to be an exact science. Again, let this mixture sit. This time a few days should be all it takes for the milk to curdle. The milk solids will rise to the top and look like cottage cheese.
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Strain out the curds and keep the yellow liquid that remains. Now mix the yellow liquid 50/50 with molasses and you have your finished product that can be stored for up to 6 months.
I use 2-3 tbs per gallon for foliar and 1/3 cup per gallon for soil drench.
The cheese curds can be fed to dogs or added to the compost. My dogs love it and it's great for their digestive health. It's a probiotic for plants and pets.
EM should only cost $1-2 per bottle
heres why!
Cool thing about lab grown EM1 is it's diverse yet constistently probiotic and can be cultured into more volume. Lactoserum focuses on native cultures and exclusively lactobacilli.
To make an extended bottle of EM1 or as I have learned to call it EMe, you need:
nonchorinated water,
agricultural grade molasses, this is about 10-20 a gallon from a local supplier and I imagine eBay would have some decent products
liter size plastic bottle,
tablespoon (15mL),
funnel,
sharpie
and a bottle of EM1 from DR HIGA @ TERAGANIX don’t buy dormant bacteria from anywhere other than the lab their cultured at.
Procedure:
Measure out two tablespoons of water and pour it into the plastic bottle, mark this level with the sharpie. This is a 30mL mark for the molasses.
Pour out the water and pour in molasses up to this sharpie line.
Add ¾ liter of water or enough to dissolve the molasses by spinning or flipping, but not shaking. Shaking will produce a lot of foam and will have to settle. Just a hassle.
Next add two tablespoons of EM1 to the bottle
Fill the rest of the bottle but leave a little air space at the top. The bottle will produce pressure and need to be burped once or twice throughout the first week. For larger batches, a carboy can be used. These usually have airlocks which will prevent a pressure build up.
So, the bottle need to ferment with the lid tight for a week. Keep it out of the sun or you’ll wake up the photosynthetics. After a week has gone by, the bottle can be considered EMe or ‘’EM extended”. You can drink it straight, make bokashi, use it in your garden, control septic tank sludge, control pet odors, etc etcetcetcetcetc.
It should be diluted in water @1:100 ratio by volume with an equal amount of molasses. For instance, If you added 10mL of EMe then you will need 10 mL of molasses. The sugar is the food but white sugar is a poor diet and won’t ferment correctly.
Extra:
EM1 should be used to make EMe. EMe should not be used to make more EMe, it’ll only be lactobacillus being cultured, which is OK but not as effective as EM1 or EMe.
There are a million fertilizers you can make with EMe. Fermented fruits, weeds, adding a science to biodynamics, use in ACT.
Here's EM1:
Specifications
ACTIVE INGREDIENTS*:
Microorganisms: 1 million colony forming units/cc (units/ml), 1%: Lactic Acid Bacteria, Yeast, and Photosynthetic Bacteria
INACTIVE INGREDIENTS:
96% Water and 3% Molasses
*Not all microbes are listed on the actual label.
Just for your own sanitation's sake, the rice wash should be used up in a week. The bacteria will shift powers to a less active culture and begin to spoil. Starting with a lab grown culture is much healthier. You'd need a compound microscope to faithfully say you're culturing only probiotics. A liter of lab grown EM1 can make 33.3 high quality liters of EMextended.
2016Price of EM1 23$ without shipping. So 30$ with shipping
30÷33=91 cents per new bottle
A gallon of agricultural grade molasses is 5-20$ store to store. And will feed 135 liter size bottles of EMextended.
So, lets pretend like molasses was $20.
20÷135=15cents per bottle
$1.06 per liter of lab quality EMe (EM extended).
I made some of this but my curd is in the bottom with the light yellowy kind of serum at the top, just wondered if I have to wait for the curd to rise before separating please? did do a big batch so maybe just taking longer. Look forward to your reply 
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