Batch grain dryer set up

[warksfarmer]

I am going to lay a drying floor soon.
Those panels look good, you can move them easily if you need to change use

You mean the floor panels or wall panels?
Floor panels yes very easily. Wall panels is a bigger job obviously, but yes you could do it.

 

[Brisel]

Been reading some old posts your strategy - basically its get grain out of dryer and then cooling fans on full bore for 2 or 3 weeks to get down to 18-15 degrees asap? I think I've been guilty of not cooling long enough early on and just doing night times when I should be doing all the time

What temp do you tend to get the grain out of the dryer at?

The exhaust temperature is around 45 degrees C for feed grains where the hot air is 120 degrees. The grain coming out is 30-40 degrees despite the bottom few ducts drawing ambient air in. I have pedestals about 5m apart with 3 phase fans and temperature probes connected to a Lishman differential controller. This has an outside temperature probe and runs an extractor fan that pulls the warm exhaust air across the top of the heap & outside. 4 fans are moved around 12 pedestals according to where the hot spots are. Usually run them 24 hours/day for a few days then switch them to automatic. We move the fans 3-4 times throughout the autumn to gradually pull the bulk temperature down. I empty this shed first too.

12 x 30-50t bins have a shared cooling fan on a differential controller and manifold. A moveable probe is left in the hottest bin.

The 3 x 950t silos have cooling fans that run 24 hours/day for a week then on at nights only. No temperature differential controllers on these yet so I just turn them on when there's a frost forecast. By Christmas they are usually sub 8 degrees and sub 5 by March.

2x 750t drive on wooden floors have 2x50hp fans for drying with a Robydome AVC300 controller for drying with ambient air and a humidistat. For cooling there's a programme for that & probes in the heap. The fan motors have inverters for soft startup so I just dial the speed down & let them do their thing.

Other than a few booklice in oats last autumn, I haven't had a bug problem in 9 years since we invested in the differential controllers. The drier is for drying only really but shutting the cooling door completely on the CF drier just adds another 5-10 degrees that seem harder to shift quickly before bugs start appearing. We spray and smokebomb every store every year and clean them thoroughly as they empty but the critters seem to breed in the right conditions, especially in the older stores.

A decent exhaust system is important IMO. The condensation from cooling hot grain is tremendous especially on a cool September night. Just leaving the shed doors open isn't enough IMO.