Shaul, I am a little confused by your post. I sift larger material out during harvest with 1/2" mesh and return it to the bed when I am finished. This has left me with about 90-95% finished material containing a few worms and many cacoons. After this sits un-fed for a few months I will do a finer sift prior to use. I'm not an expert, it's just my approach. Hope this helps. Pete

Hi Pete;
Actually I'm still rather confused myself. Since this is my very first harvest, I don't have a tried & true method of finishing off the vermicompost process. Like the worms I'm still very much ' in the dark '.

Shaul

Shaul I am on my third harvest and have done it different each time. Next time will also be different. If I ever figure it out I will be sure and let you know. What I am doing with a finish tub is trying to hatch as many cacoons as posible before I use it. I try to remove as much food/bedding before. Any worms still in there do not need food and could survive for a very long time.
I made a tumbling sifter out of 2 5-gallon buckets with the bottoms cut out. I cut 1/4 inch hardware cloth to fit around the outside and attached with plastic ties. I used 1" PVC pipe axle down the center attached to the buckets with a couple pieces of allthread with nuts and more ties. Slip over a broomstick, add some stuff from the bin and slowly spin. I am on my second version with a hopper and adjustable stand. I hope only finished castings and a few eggs will fall through the screen, and worms and unfinished material come out the other end. The operation requires 2 people and beer. Pete

Pete...I agree!! Casting/coccoon sifting requires beer. I just sifted a pile of castings then picked thru it manually. I had some scrap 1/2 inch hardware cloth which is way too big. One thing I realized was that in a few minutes i'd saved out more coccoons and juvenile worms than I started out with.

shaul: Well I made a 1'x1' screen with 1/8 inch hardware cloth and harvested 2 Rubbermaid bins. now I must thank you for the post, it works. I thought it was too fine of mesh but it seems like the cocoons ride up with the courser material while the heaver castings fall through. I did not feed the bins for two weeks prier to sifting and it was about a Month of withholding water. I then scooped out the castings and broke them up (they were clumping)with a large serving spoon I have reclaimed for worming. Then I hand sieved the bins into a tote. I could not find a cocoon and only a couple of small worms. You have to work fast when you screen, worms will head down and try to crawl through if you don't. I also tried a larger size about 1/4 inch The worms hung up and fell through the screen. I have since made a frame to fit over a tote with a shaker screen to speed up the harvest a bit. Not that it was slow, it went so much faster than hand sorting. Sorry I do not have pictures and I hope this makes sense. It might be the roundness of the hardware cloth from the galvanizing is what makes it work?

Curt~