mbetts,
If I my castings are too damp and sticking together, I just store mine in an extra worm bin with air holes for a while. It dries nice and crumbly and fluffy.

A girl posted on my Freecyce site this weekend, wanting some compost. I offered her my worm poop and she was thrilled when she came to pick it up. She marvelled at how nice and lush and beautiful it was.

My understanding is that some companies that produce and sell castings use special feeds for this. Also, according to "harnessing the earthworm" by Thomas Barrett, there is a domesticated breed that will produce a looser casting. That's an old book, though.

Do you add sifted soil to your bins? Lime/calcium carbonate? The added minerals might help. They also help with pH regulation.

Hi MB!

If your looking to dry your castings quickly I don't know if this will be of any help but I recently finished harvesting my castings and ended up with about 12 to 15 gallons. It was a long process and took a good week. It wasn't physical labor as much as it was time consuming as in watching paint dry on a wall, if you know what I mean.

I don't know how much castings your worms produce but I have 4 individual bins. I found drying the castings somewhat slowly is the key to keeping them fluffy, and here's how I go about it, step by step. I hope my process doesn't sound complicated because it really isn't, as it is a step by step method. Maybe you could try it on smaller scale of a gallon or so of castings.

Because of the large amount of castings my worms produce I use an 18" X 24" X 6" deep heavy duty (blk) mixing tub that I purchased from Home Depot, I think for 5 bucks, and it's paid for itself over and over. I also save a few weeks of the local blk/wh newspaper sections. When I'm done with the paper I shred it for worm food. I also use an old desk lamp to shine on the tub when I begin separating the worms from the castings.

I might add I do this in my unfinished basement where I keep my worms.

1.) I take the castings worms and all and place them in the tub not quite 1/2 full. (If you have a small amount you might be able to lay yours on a work bench.)
2.) I visually quarter the bin and make 4 separate piles and begin to work with one pile at a time with the desk light on.
3.) After I begin separating I place whatever castings I have on two or three sections of newspaper that I've set on the floor.
a.) I push those castings onto an old dust pan so this process will go along a little quicker.

4.) By the time I'm done separating the 4th pile the worms have already slithered deeper in the first and I can go back to that pile.
5.) When I get closer to the bottom it takes a little longer as you have to wait for the castings to come to the top as the worms dig deeper but slower. I think they become lethargic from being disturbed, but the light helps to force them down.
6.) What I have left are 4 piles of worms that I put back in a ready prepared bin.
7.) Then I go to my next batch of worms and castings filling the tub 1/2 full again.
8.) As I separate this batch I lay down another two or three sections of dry newspaper for this round.
9.) When I'm done with the second batch I quit separating for the day.

But first I follow these steps.

1.) I line the tub with 4 or 5 sections of dry newspaper.
2.) Then I use the dust pan and with my (cotton gloved) hand pull the casting onto the pan and place it in the tub, as I don't want to tear the wet newspaper. I use it over and over after its dried out.
3.) Because I filed the tub (almost) 1/2 full twice it's now close to full and then I lay dry newspaper on top to help absorb moisture.
4.) Then I'm done for the day, except for the fact I leave the newspaper on the floor that I put the castings on and let it dry.
5.) If I decide to do some more the next day and this newspaper (on the floor) isn't fully dried I use fresh paper and put the first print to the side to let it dry some more. The paper in the bin is usually saturted.

Now after at least a day (or two) after all of the separating is done this is what I do next and I use those inexpensive brown cloth work gloves that you can also buy at Home Depot, I think like 6 in a package.

1.) I take the castings out of the tub (with the dust pan) and lay it on a couple of section of print and spread it out. I may have 4 or 5 piles.
2.) If the castings are still pretty wet I just let them sit for a few hours;

Then when I start.

3.) I gather one of the piles of castings with the dustpan and put that pile back into the empty tub. The castings are clumpy and I break down the clumps by rubbing my hands together. The gloves being cotton also help to absorb some moisture.
4.) When they're broken down enough I put them back in a pile on dry newsprint, and then work on the next pile.
5.) Depending on how wet the castings are this might have to be done twice. One thing for sure you don't want the castings to be totally dried out as they harden like rock if their clumped, and you won't get out all of the small clumps anyway.

If you do this process you'll see that most of the castings are fluffy. If you want to totally get out the clumpy stuff you can sift the finer out. The clumps might be fairly hard. If they are I put those (a small amount at a time) in a plastic "Betty Crocker" frosting container and pound them to a fine looking soil. If there damp because there still might be some moisture I just add some dry castings and pound and mix together.

I apologize if this has been long drawn out and wordy but I hope it will help you.

Jim

The stuff I am getting out of the bottom of my flow-through is very thoroughly processed by the worms. There are no identifiable bits of food or bedding anywhere. It's like pretty much total worm poop.
Jim and jasdip, is this the sort of stuff you are having success with using your methods?
I do have better fluff with the vermicompost that still has some partially uncomposted stuff in it, from the bottom of my stacking bins. Maybe I should be pulling the stuff out of the flow-through bin sooner?
mbetts

I little or no unprocessed food and bedding when I harvest.
When I harvest, I lay a plastic bag punched full of holes with a kitchen fork (an onion bag or landscape cloth would also work)over my new bin.

I lay the vc and worms on top of the plastic bag under a light and they naturally migrate into the new bin through the holes.

The castings then go into another bin, or a 5-gallon pail to dry further, and also to pick any lagging worms. This has worked very very well for me, and the vc is nice, as well.

You are dealing with good castings and the only way to get them to become loose and fluffy is to dry them out but very important as they dry you have to continually break the clumps apart. As they dry they do fall apart but it will take a long time to get there from the sounds of it. Just place them in a container or lay them out somewhere for quite a few weeks and don't be surprised if it takes more than a month, just remember to break clumps apart often and mix to allow the drying process to happen equally.
You may want to try and increase the air flow to the bottom of the flow through bin to start the drying process or try and use more dry bedding to lower the moisture content in the bin.

I made a sifter out of a old 5 gallon bucket and 1/4" wire mesh. It took 2 1/2 hours to build the sifter and sift 10 gallons of compost.

I cut the bottom out of the bucket and cut it in half. I attached the wire to the bucket with plastic ties.

Then used an old 18 gallon bin to make a base/stand. I cut a shallow circle out of the bin just deep enough to lay the bucket across the top with the lower end 3-4 inches lower than the top feeding end.

I added a pile of compost in the top end and steadily turned the sifter. The compost fell through the holes in the wire and the worms (even the babies) and unprocessed bedding rode all the way through to the end.

I ended up with 8 gallons of the compost fluffed up to a third again the volume. And the rest was worms and unprocessed bedding that i returned to the working bin.

The eggs did fall through the screen and i have a mesh bag filled with some compost and melon buried in the compost as a lure to collect the babies when they hatch.

It was a lot quicker than then 11 hours i spent going through five gallons of compost using the dump, hunt and peck method. And i am far more pleased with the quality of the sifted compost.

I've read this method of sifting is bad for the worms. Any evidence of this from what you have seen? I've thought about making one of those, too. I saw a video on youtube with one. Essentially a smaller version of the commercial ones. I've used a compost sifter. It's a flat tray with a 1/4 inch mesh bottom. I shook it back and forth. Was tiring and took a while. Kind of even hurt my back.

joe.jr317 the 1/4 inch screen is quite large to get the fluffy castings that mbetts is after. The 1/4 may be good for Vermicompost. As to the worms they are very tough and go right back to doing their thing after being tossed through and through. But remember by the time I am sifting I have already separated the worms and maybe some remain and they are separated through the sifting. Here is a link to pictures of when I last harvested very well processed Castings. The castings sifted came from a batch that I had sitting in a bucket for months. Don't get confused with the pictures of the current bins contents(current back in Feb).

Here is a link that might be useful: Harvesting and Sifting of Castings.