How to crush, grind, pulverise charcoal

[lemit]

Are we going to use a granular fertilizer spreader, a manure spreader, or some other way of applying the char? I am concerned about dust, both for nuisance and health reasons and for the efficacy of the application.

 

Thanks.

 

--lemit

[Freerangefarmer]

Personally, I was thinking about mixing the biochar with fresh horse manure and the wood shavings used for bedding (the shavings are typically saturated with urine) and composting for maybe 60 days, and then spreading with an old manure spreader. Then incorporating with either a disk or plow and/or a subsoiler.

 

I would expect that this mixture would be moist enough that dust would not be a problem.

 

FRF

[maikeru]

:)

 

Please remember your plastic still gets warm replacing items:)

 

Haha, true.

 

I'm thinking of shredding and processing feedstock beforehand--this is probably more the way to go.

[maikeru]

.

[mathuranatha]

I left about a cubic meter of homemade biochar in a pile for about 3 years .Grass,roots and weeds etc grew through it .When I shoveled it up it was definitely finer than when i made it .Another 2 thousand years and it should be fine as the terrapretta and I can sell it to the local landscape supply:lol:

[maikeru]

.

[Essay]

Interesting. If one deposits the biochar as chips, can we expect enough fragmentation to make it into something like sand within a few to several years? Looking at my first batch, it seems like it's gotten finer over the last 3 years, but I'm not sure exactly. The resulting mix was of char of all sizes, from about thumb-sized pieces to fine dust.

That is what the book suggests:

Under "Particle fragmentation" they have listed:

Freeze-Thaw cycles, Rain and wind, Penetration by plant roots and fungal hyphae, and Bioturbation.

"Earthworms ingested these particles (>2mm) (but did not digest them) and redistributed them in the [soil] profile (concentrated at 0.8m depth) by excretion...." -Lehmann, 2009

 

By exposing new (functionally active) surfaces when they break apart, larger chunks contribute to an ongoing small "priming" effect that some fresh biochars can overexpress. It'd probably be better to say that fresh surfaces, on occasionally fragmenting char, contributes to biochar's enhancement of the pedosphere's resilience and microbial diversity.

 

p.s. ...but there's a whole 'nother chapter on "Biochar Application to Soil."

[maikeru]

.

[lemit]

Personally, I was thinking about mixing the biochar with fresh horse manure and the wood shavings used for bedding (the shavings are typically saturated with urine) and composting for maybe 60 days, and then spreading with an old manure spreader. Then incorporating with either a disk or plow and/or a subsoiler.

 

I would expect that this mixture would be moist enough that dust would not be a problem.

 

FRF

 

Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you.

 

If my experience with Guinea Pig bedding (urine-soaked pine shavings) and coffee grounds is of any value, you might not need to compost. I put my mix on and immediately plant a garden, successfully. Worms seem to arrive almost immediately and in about a month I have a very mature-looking loam. (Maybe that caffeine keeps them going.) I would guess, without any information to support my guess, that if you have mainly horse manure and shavings, you'll be fine. If the mix is mainly biochar, then you might need to check the pH.

 

--lemit

[maikeru]

Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you.

 

If my experience with Guinea Pig bedding (urine-soaked pine shavings) and coffee grounds is of any value, you might not need to compost. I put my mix on and immediately plant a garden, successfully. Worms seem to arrive almost immediately and in about a month I have a very mature-looking loam. (Maybe that caffeine keeps them going.) I would guess, without any information to support my guess, that if you have mainly horse manure and shavings, you'll be fine. If the mix is mainly biochar, then you might need to check the pH.

 

--lemit

 

If you can sometime, could you take photos of your mix either before or after and the resulting garden? Sounds really good. :)

[Knothead]

Just a thought.

 

How would it work if someone dug a pit. About three or four feet deep and about five feet in diameter. The pit would be filled to just slightly lower than ground level with biochar. Not crushed biochar, just the way it comes from the stove. The stuff from all the leaves, fronds, twigs, branches etc from the yard.

Then in the middle of the slight depression one starts his new compost pile. (mostly for humanure)

 

Every year or so a new pit and pile would be made in different, depleted areas of the yard.

 

Do you suppose that the biochar would absorb the leachate and that eventually, after the thermophilic composting was completed and worms and plants were introduced to the area that the biochar might eventually be broken down on it's own?

[erich]

Josiah Hunt has refined open pits & composting in Hawaii;

Markets and Business Opportunities

[Knothead]

Josiah Hunt has refined open pits & composting in Hawaii;

Markets and Business Opportunities

 

That's cool. But just for the sake of expediency, could you tell me if my idea is similar to what Josiah Hunt has refined or am I way off and it's a stupid idea.

I clicked on your link and then I google him and it's just getting too late tonight to chase it all down.

Thanks,

Steve

[erich]

Should be easy from here;

 

Yahoo! Groups

[mavrickjohn]

What I find works best for me is to soak the charcoal in water and then put it on the concrete driveway. I then roll it with a lawn roller. It's the kind that is filled with water and used to firm down a grass seed bed. After rolling it I sieve it through a 1/4'' hardware cloth. What doesn't sieve through gets rolled again. It helps to sieve the charcoal through 1/2" hardware cloth first and roll that first until all of it passes through and then graduate to the 1/4". Also wiggle the roller as your rolling. It is fairly fast and you have a nice finished product with no dust.

[biochar]

Hello Mat, I just found this post do you still need help mate crushing charcoal?

I have just wrote up a post about my latest project and since I live a few miles

from you you should come and have a look.

 

how to crush charcoal

 

Hope your doing well mate

 

Charmaster Dolph

[GAHD]

I'd think a lawn-mower would make a good medium-large scale grinder.

 

Wrap it in a rubber skirt and block off the exit port. Should reduce a few cubic feet of charcoal to dust fairly quickly.