grain drying
- Thread starter billboy 1
- Start date
- Location
- CW5 Cheshire
On floor is the easiest for biomass drying, I simply put in a small on floor dryer in with a decent sized fan on it and use it like a batch dryer.
on floor laterals ? how wide/ long think I could prob do something similar as my boiler will be right next to grAin store
- Location
- CW5 Cheshire
Drive over hard wood floor, approximately 20' by 30'. I generally only fill it 3.5' deep and get about 30t in at a time. I find it works best for me to dry a batch over night, while the boiler has no other load on it and the fan is on economy 7.
renewablejohn
Member
- Location
- lancs
You can get a wood pellet burner that directly replaces the kero burner
http://www.pellergy.com/wood-pellet-burner-pb-1525/
Lots of other manufacturers
Last edited:
- Location
- Forfar,Angus,Scotland
Heat exchanger of some sort in front of opico fan would mean it would use a lot less gas to get to working temp,obviously you would also need a bypass to switch it off on the cooling cycle though.
- Location
- CW5 Cheshire
199 Kw wood chip, 11Kw fan. The system also provides heat and hot water to the farm house and local gastro Pub.
Feel free to P.M. me if you want any more info, the system works well, but there are one or two potential pit falls.
Dman2
Member
- Location
- Durham, UK
Looked round a system yesterday, which had a 200kw chip boiler installed
Guy was putting a heat exchanger in front of his oil burner on the dryer. It was a brand new allmett system.
Had to be careful what he did so as not to impede airflow.
Reckoned that by heating the air just 3 degree above normal he would save £17000 a year, it was a big dryer and he dried for others as well.
Boiler also did 4 houses 1 with a pool, a rug drying room for his livery business ( charged people £2 a go to dry the horse rugs ) and also provided warm air to dry chip produced from his own woodland.
Impressive setup
Guy was putting a heat exchanger in front of his oil burner on the dryer. It was a brand new allmett system.
Had to be careful what he did so as not to impede airflow.
Reckoned that by heating the air just 3 degree above normal he would save £17000 a year, it was a big dryer and he dried for others as well.
Boiler also did 4 houses 1 with a pool, a rug drying room for his livery business ( charged people £2 a go to dry the horse rugs ) and also provided warm air to dry chip produced from his own woodland.
Impressive setup
humblefarmer
Member
Plonked a 200 kW HE unit into the entrance of our fan house, it warms the air by maybe 5 degrees yesterday and reduced RH from about 75 to 35.
Got normal timber drive over floors which dry wood chip in just a few days when I did an experiment.
Got normal timber drive over floors which dry wood chip in just a few days when I did an experiment.
I wanted to heat the air going into our Opico dryer using our biomass, my idea was to fit a large heat exchanger in front of the intake on the side (RAB 5000) fitted with electric valves to switch off heat when the gas went off to allow it to cool. However our installer said I wouldn't gain very much due to the high air flow to justify the cost of the system. He said on floor was best with biomass.
humblefarmer
Member
I don't claim to be an expert on this but what I have learnt is that RH appears more important than temperature for drying grain / chip.
I believe a gas heater produces water vapour which may be counter productive?
How close is your biomass unit to the the fans? My 2 x 2 m 200kw HE unit cost about £1500 3 years ago. When flat out the the instantaneous power is about 3-400 kW/h, that's achievable 24/7 if I load every 3-4 hours. Doing the sums makes it hugely viable before regard is given to the drying improvements.
I understand that it's possible to put damaging strain on fans though if the air resistance is too great as a result of the HE unit.
Hope this helps,
HF
I believe a gas heater produces water vapour which may be counter productive?
How close is your biomass unit to the the fans? My 2 x 2 m 200kw HE unit cost about £1500 3 years ago. When flat out the the instantaneous power is about 3-400 kW/h, that's achievable 24/7 if I load every 3-4 hours. Doing the sums makes it hugely viable before regard is given to the drying improvements.
I understand that it's possible to put damaging strain on fans though if the air resistance is too great as a result of the HE unit.
Hope this helps,
HF
found it http://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/continuos-flow-drying-with-biomass.13893/
maybe of interest ?
woodchipman
New Member
- Location
- Fermanagh
We are putting in a drying shed for our coppiced woodchip. we intend to have a 99KW burner with a 140Kw heat exchanger and 11KW fan. The KWB will heat two houses as well as the 22m* 8m*3.5m drying floor, are these in proportion?
renewablejohn
Member
- Location
- lancs
Sounds a recipe for disaster. Have you actually seen this system drying woodchip and happy with the results if not then do find someone happy with the system as woodchip is quite different to corn. If you want a comparison have a look at the "Lenz" type woodchip dryers which do actually work.
Bigmonkeyman
Member
- Location
- North Yorks
Looking at doing exactly the same. Has anyone got any practical experience of doing this and what type of fuel savings could be expected?
PostHarvest
Member
- Location
- Warwick
To my knowledge Harvest Installations have been successfully selling their "Humidity Controller" units on the basis of reducing the humidity of drying air rather than just raising the temperature for the last 25 years.
Cimbria the Danish grain dryer manufacturer has also been making bio-mass fired continuous flow dryers for many years. They were originally intended for drying rice. Basically they install a large boiler burning rice husk, straw, wood or whatever fuel you have to heat oil that passes through large heat exchangers to heat the drying air. But you need some pretty large heat exchangers that are carefully designed not to reduce the airflow too much.
Cimbria the Danish grain dryer manufacturer has also been making bio-mass fired continuous flow dryers for many years. They were originally intended for drying rice. Basically they install a large boiler burning rice husk, straw, wood or whatever fuel you have to heat oil that passes through large heat exchangers to heat the drying air. But you need some pretty large heat exchangers that are carefully designed not to reduce the airflow too much.
Do you not think that would work if the boiler can supply the heat requirements? We hopefully have someone identified to cut harvest our willow in whole rods soon. We are planning to stack them and season them naturally until the autumn. We might try some in a solar kiln as you mentioned previously if we can get our hands on a 2nd hand polytunnel coming at handy money and the rest outside with the prevailing wind blowing straight into the stack.
The plan would then be to chip as and when required and blow onto a small drying floor to get the moisture down to a consistent level sub 20% and hopefully ready to burn in the boiler we hope to install. Heat would be used for staff room, office, dwelling and small drying floor.
Only initial stage of planning but thats a rough idea of what we're hoping to do. Looked at a similar system last week and hoping to go to look at another tomorrow. The farmers seem happy enough with it. Hopefully draw up more detailed plans with installer as soon as possible.