New to biochar: crushing it-how small?

Hi all, I am new to Biochar and have made a batch in two large #10 cans. My question is how small or fine do I crush it?? Quarter size, nickel size, dime size, Cheerio size , rice size, or do I make it into a powder? Any advice is appreciated.
Scott
Concord Ca.

Hi Scott,

Welcome to Permies.

Hi Scott.
I guess that will depend on the use.
Breaking the big lumps apart is always a good idea I think.

What will you use it for?

There is a lot of evidence that breaking it down into small pieces is better for letting the microbes in to use it. In general, that is what biochar is for. It will improve the nutrient distribution and retaining of those nutrients in the soil. It will also improve both the drainage of the soil and the retaining of water.   In the long run, it will probably be broken down smaller. A good guess might be cheerio size. There is some evidence that larger pieces, such as dime size, might hold onto moisture in the soil better, but that isn't really completely established empirically. There is still some debate about that.  

Some people in larger tracts of land often primarily use the trench method, which doesn't really actively crush the biochar.  It is often done for the future.  Inoculation is also often done afterwards, by pouring nutrients onto it.  It would be impractical with this method to crush it or inoculate it in a very precise way, but these people know that they are improving large areas of land for the future and such precision isn't really super important on that scale. It sounds like you are working on a relatively small scale, so in that case, I would crush it and inoculate it. My two cents.

John S
PDX OR

Here is one method of making it small fast.

I have been told about rice sized gives you the best results if you want to stretch it as far as you can. If you have plenty of char, as long as you get it small enough to not plug your rake or planter it’s good. I leave it fairly big because I don’t have a good way to keep the dust down.