There’s a new Reencle composter in town, and of all the features I thought I might miss from the trailblazing original Reencle Prime, I didn’t think it would be the auto-close lid.

The overly sensitive opening sensor annoyed me at first, but I ended up not giving the Prime’s lid another thought during my nearly 1.5 years of use. In hindsight, this is a testament to its convenience. It even has a setting for it to auto-open. Walk over to the receptacle, it opens; dump your scraps in, it closes. Buttons and lids remain clean and untouched by dirty, slimy hands.

Reencle’s brand-new, lower-cost unit, the Essential, is pretty much the same as the Prime (which is still available), with a few small tweaks—updated looks, a larger shovel, and a lid you have to manually close and a button you have to press to open. The button and lid already dirty after only three weeks, but my family consistently forgets to push the lid closed, having grown used to the auto-close lids of both our trash can and our old Prime. At least a few days a week, I will be caught off guard by a constant beeping—the Essential letting us know its lid is still open.

Aside from that, the Essential delivers the same user-friendly, close-to-compost-producing experience as its older sibling, but for $150 less.

Prime (left) and Essential (right)

Photograph: Kat Merck

Compost in Progress

You may have heard of kitchen composters before, whether the Lomi, FoodCycler, or the original Reencle Prime. It’s a compelling fantasy: Food scraps go in the bin, and out comes ready-to-use compost.

Unfortunately, for all of these machines, it’s just that: a fantasy. Many of them (like Lomi and FoodCycler) simply grind and dry the scraps to create a material that looks kind of like dirt. Sure, it’s odorless and shelf-stable, but if you want to use it in your garden, you’ll need to mix it into potting soil at a very low ratio—like 1:10, or even 1:20 if you’re processing a lot of meat and dairy.

Reencle, meanwhile, actually uses thermophilic bacteria (including Bacillus and Actinomycetes) to break down the waste, resulting in a biologically active material that, while not ready-to-use compost, is at least part of the way there. There are a couple of other machines that also do this, and I’ve tried them, but they’re bulkier, pricier, and louder than Reencle—don’t discount the noise-polluting effects of an audible fan running 24/7, especially if you live in a small space. (Reencle’s large-capacity Gravity model was—and remains—the only food recycler/composter I’ve ever tested that was truly silent at all times.)

You’ll still have to mix Reencle’s output with potting soil after letting it “cure” for 30 days to balance the pH, but at a more meaningful 1:4 ratio. I’ve been using these Reencle grounds for almost a year and a half, indoors and outdoors, and I’ve never had issues with smells, mold, or other weirdness when I follow the curing directions and mixing ratios.

Scrap Routine

Like all Reencle models, the Essential operates much like a trash can: Waste goes in as you produce it—no cycles or separate bucket needed. The Essential can accept everything the larger Reencles can—meat, dairy, eggs, cooked foods, and even small bones—but 1.5 to 2.2 pounds is the maximum recommended amount per day. You’ll have to eyeball it, since unlike the Gravity, neither the Essential nor the Prime has a built-in scale.

The Essential arrives fully assembled and requires simply removing the stickers from the carbon filter and installing it, opening the included ReencleMicrobe mixture, dumping it into the machine, adding water, and powering the unit on. Within 24 hours, your ReencleMicrobes should be rehydrated and ready to chow down.

It took my family about three weeks to reach the Essential’s fill line (roughly the same as the Prime), at which point you need to sift the contents before curing. There’s no set amount of mixture that needs to be removed, but Reencle recommends leaving it one-third full. I usually scoop into a sieve set over a separate bin, then dump the contents (usually citrus peels and banana peel scraps) back inside for further processing.

Photograph: Kat Merck

This is admittedly annoying and time-consuming, but you can also put the contents in an outdoor compost pile, throw them in your municipal green-waste bin (if your local program accepts it), or use them to top-dress your lawn. If you need to go on vacation, as I have done many times, you can leave the Essential for up to four weeks with no action needed. I’ve been gone for up to 10 days when testing both the Prime and the Gravity models, and the contents looked much the same upon my return.

The microbes reproduce right in the bin, so unless something goes really wrong with your mixture (like adding too much oil), your unit should not need much attention or maintenance other than occasional replacement of the carbon filter ($12, once a year).

One of the major changes from the Prime to the Essential is the look—the Essential’s exterior is sleeker and more contemporary, with a matte white (or black) finish and the buttons positioned on the front instead of the top. All Reencle models come with a little shovel that hangs from a plastic hook on the side. It’s usually small, about the size of the kind that come with children’s beach buckets, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the Essential’s shovel is now long enough to reach the very bottom of the machine and stir the contents. Or, more importantly, move them out of the way so you can keep an eye on the stirring paddles at the bottom of the unit, which keep the contents fresh and aerated.

Photograph: Kat Merck

You will want to occasionally make sure there’s nothing obstructing these paddles, like wet grounds stuck to the side or a tangled mess of banana peel strings (larger or stringy items should be cut up before being added to the Reencle), as they are relatively fragile—one of them on my Prime broke off after a year and a half, and I only discovered it when I went to scoop out the contents. (Reencle has step-by-step instructions for how to request and install a replacement; you’ll need to pay $35 if it’s outside Reencle’s two-year warranty period.)

The one curiosity I ran into was the noise level. Both the Prime and Essential had nearly identical readings on my decibel meter—around 28 decibels—but the Essential’s sound has a different character: more of a “FFFFFFFF” than a soft “Shhhhhh,” which I find more noticeable.

In all, there’s little reason to choose the Prime over the Essential unless you’ve absolutely got to have that auto-close lid. The sizes and capacities are similar, but the Prime is a little heavier and less modern-looking, and you won’t get the new, longer shovel. If you’re willing to do the work of scooping and curing, the Essential is my new top pick among kitchen composters. I will probably always pine for the Prime’s automatic lid; just not enough to pay $150.

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