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How to grind biochar quantities?

 
zinneken ikke
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posted 9 years ago
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I've been growing a pile of biochar over last year, ready for grinding to small size and adding to half the veg garden. How does one grind biochar to tiny or dust-like particles prior to adding to soil?

Solutions such as blender, coffee grinder, bag&hammer, spread out on hard surface and drive over, in cement mixer with bricks, wait for weather and nature to break the charcoal down to smaller sizes, buy the ready-made-biochar-dust bags in store, etc. can be read up on.

Arguably good things come with time and patience, but none of these solutions are very practical when wanting to convert a pile of biochar for half the vegetable garden for this season. There must be a way to do this more efficiently for the home & garden enthusiast, even if one needs to build/buy/rent some kind of appliance.

How do you all reduce your biochar piles to small particles?
 
R Scott
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I have a hammer mill brush chipper. It does it easily and quickly, but makes a HUGE dust storm. I do it on drizzly days and live in the middle of nowhere.

Garden scale: in poly bags and drive over it or pound it with a sand tamper or sledge. You should be able to do as much as you need in a weekend. I wouldn't spend money on a tool unless you want to do tons of biochar, literally.

Small production scale: I would buy an old farm grinder-mixer. It was made to grind corn and other feedstuffs and mix them together. It has a large hammer mill WITH BUILT IN DUST MANAGEMENT!! It also would let you mix biochar and other amendments (green sand, azomite, alfalfa pellets, bone, blood, or feather meal, etc) in at the same time.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
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Philip Small
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A vac-shredder/bagger with a metal impeller is pretty handy. The bag helps control the dust. Toro makes a little electric vac shredder with the right impeller. Stihl has a back pack gas powered one. Bob Wells, New England Biochar, uses a stationary vac-shredder to unload his Adam retorts. Note: I found out this doesn't work at all well with wet charcoal.
 
John Elliott
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You don't need to worry about "dust management" when it is wet. What I do is to put it in a bucket with some water and use the immersion blender on it. You have to dedicate an immersion blender to this task though, because once you do it, you're never going to get it clean again -- or enough so that you would be willing to make a fruit smoothie with it.
 
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I'm going to say just off top , put it in tarp on a hard surface and drive over it not one pile but a line.

we don't have a problem with lack of water we have a problem with mismanagement
beavers the original permies farmers
If there is no one around to smell you ,do you really stink!

 
Kai Walker
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Here is a pretty easy method I just ran across a few minutes ago.
Pretty fast too.



I do wonder if it will do wet charcoal.
I figure if it could, it would kill two birds with one stone.

NON ASSUMPSIT. I am by no means an expert at anything. Just a lucky guesser.

 
Ellendra Nauriel
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Kai Walker wrote:
I do wonder if it will do wet charcoal.
I figure if it could, it would kill two birds with one stone.




It might even work better with wet charcoal. At the very least there would be less dust to deal with.
 
Kai Walker
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Proper way to use a disposal is to have running water when it is being used.
Would the disposal clog up without running water while grinding wet charcoal?

NON ASSUMPSIT. I am by no means an expert at anything. Just a lucky guesser.

 
Trace Oswald
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My method.  Fill a chicken food bag half full, fold the top over, and drive over it in the driveway.  Walking on it works too.

charcoal.jpeg
Bag o' charcoal
Bag o' charcoal

A build too cool to miss:Mike's GreenhouseA great example:Joseph's Garden
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Hugo Morvan
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I crushed it with a hammer, then added water, then used a cordless drill and a paintmixer/ cement mixer on that. Watch out to keep it under! Then dumped it in the cement mixer with stones. Now it's waiting for the  aerated compost tea to get ready!
BIO-CHAR-SLUSH.jpg
[Thumbnail for BIO-CHAR-SLUSH.jpg]

Creating edible biodiversity and embracing everlasting abundance.

 
Mike Haasl
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Hugo, why can't you do the whole process with the cement mixer?

Trace, how many back and forths do you have to do to crush a bag sufficiently?  Is it better if done on dirt or pavement or does it matter?

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Hugo Morvan
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It’s only because it’s less controlled. It’s going to take longer in the cement mixer. It’s spitting for longer then. It takes time and materials to make it. I want to minimize losses. Taking a sledge hammer and drill is quicker.

Creating edible biodiversity and embracing everlasting abundance.

 
Trace Oswald
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Mike Haasl wrote:Hugo, why can't you do the whole process with the cement mixer?

Trace, how many back and forths do you have to do to crush a bag sufficiently?  Is it better if done on dirt or pavement or does it matter?



Hey Mike, dirt works just fine, that's what my driveway is.  I just run over it 3 or 4 times and it's small enough for me.  After I run over it, I kind of pile it back up again.  If you really wanted it crushed to dust, you would probably have to hit it 7 or 8 times I think.

A build too cool to miss:Mike's GreenhouseA great example:Joseph's Garden
All the soil info you'll ever need:
Redhawk's excellent soil-building series

 
Dan Fish
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I concur. I just spread my burn piles out (on dirt, of course), quench em and drive over them the next day with my truck. I really only aim for one good pass, front and and back wheels.

Its pretty small after that. I suppose you could sift it through something after that to separate the big chunks (1/4 inch?) to the powder and either crush whats left or use for different applications.

Fish heads fish heads roly poly fish heads

 
John Suavecito
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Our version, as I've stated elsewhere, it so lay the biochar between two panels of plywood and drive over them a few times each time we park.  It works great.   Our driveway is cement, and we use the pickup truck, so it's a lot of weight that we couldn't muster before.

John S
PDX OR

Check out Redhawk's soil series: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil

 
Michael Cox
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I don’t crush mine, I find it breaks down in the soil over a few years any way., and an extra crushing step seemed like unnecessary labour.

I’ve made some batches directly where I am making new veggie beds, and am planning to run a tiller through to shape the beds. I’m expecting it to smash up the biggest chunks in the process.

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Mike Haasl
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I saw in a youtube video that if you quench the hot char it becomes much more crumbly.

SKIP books, get 'em while they're hot!!! Skills to Inherit Property
See me in a movie building a massive wood staircase:Low Tech Lab Movie

 
John Suavecito
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With my TLUD 55 gallon drum, I have to quench it anyway to stop the burn before it turns to ashes anyway, so that's good to know.
John S
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Check out Redhawk's soil series: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil

 
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