Breaking char down into smaller pieces

I guess it all depends on your scale. If you have a small amount, crushing by hand in a bucket will probably work.  

On my "medium scale", I want enough char to cover my suburban yard within a foot or two of every plant.  Using the bucket method will wear me out and prevent me from trying to crush it.  Running it over in large burlap bags works great on my scale. I don't want to wait a few years for the biochar to become helpful.  If it doesn't get charged/nutrified it will take nutrition out of your yard for a few years until it reaches homeostasis.  In a fairly small yard,  I put more biochar out and I don't want to hold back my yard every week for years in those areas.  There is research showing that the charging only goes into the biochar a very small distance, until it gets crushed into smaller pieces.  Yes, it's porous, but only by water and air, not by the nutrition and microbes we need.

I understand that for people with a lot of acreage, they can't focus on that small of a scale.  The trench method is great for large acreage.  Maybe some of those large areas can wait a few years.  You are still sequestering the carbon.  In a few years, it will work great.  

I can't wait that long. I'm already pretty old.  I need my whole yard to work.  I have noticed that several of the trees and bushes are improved in their nutrient absorption and flavor the next year.  

The crushing that you do or don't do depends largely on your scale and what will work for your property, IMO.

John S
PDX OR

jack spirko wrote:Large - most of this is about the size we used to call "nut coal" in the coal industry (about a nickel to a quarter in size).  None is ever very big.  So if I need more it gets the bag and drive over trick and a couple screenings.  And sorted again, into the three classes.  But what if i don't want to crush more.  First it is also fine in bedding but I think we are missing a reality here, biochar is CHARCOAL and damn good charcoal.  

So gasp I end up with may be 20% of a run as large, I keep it separate and when I want to cook with charcoal I use it for that purpose.  It is fantastic for it.

I have also cooked on the grill with the largest of my biochar chunks.  I can't imagine why anyone would think this is odd or inappropriate.  Before it has been inoculated, biochar is no more and no less than lump charcoal.

In my experience, the biochar lit quickly and burned fast and hot.  I had spread it out and let it air dry for about a month after quenching it before sending it to the grill.

BTW, Jack, I have gotten so much invaluable info and inspiration from your podcasts over the years.  Thanks for all that you do!

Several here have mentioned varying degrees of success feeding biochar through a wood chipper.

Here is a potentially cost-effective DIY alternative.  It is definitely a solution for a small-scale operation.  I can envision it working just fine on my own, suburban-scale homestead.  Any larger-scale operation would probably find it too small and slow.

I have not yet built one myself, but I plan to.  I don't foresee it clogging with sludge, as some have reported their wood chippers doing.  I guess time will tell.  I will post again once I've fabricated my own version of this.

I definitely like the look of the finely flaked, but not powdered, biochar he produces at the end of this video:

Farm Life Australia