Drying woodchips and possibly grain

[Cruiser_79]

Hi all,
I come from the Netherlands and check this forum regularly. I was looking for some advice of using biomass to dry woodchips and possibly grain or barley when we have a wet summer. Last year summer was quite cold and wet so it wasn't easy to harvest dry...
This winter we move to my grandparents farm and I want to heat the house and workshop with biomass. I have a small sawmill so I have quite some slabs to chip. I also have a woodchipper myself so I have easy acces to chips, and hopefully even more in future. With the rising gas prices it looks interesting to heat as much as possible with my own woodchips.
So I plan to make a kind of silo/shed with a dryfloor to dry mostly woodchips, and eventual some grain in summer. For the chips it would be okay to dry 50 m3 in a time, what kind of boiler should I look at? Should 120 kW be enough, or do I need 150 kw or more? And how many ventilators will I need for grain or for woodchips? Woodchips contain much more water so I can imagine that drying woodchips determines the capacity of the system.
On the internet I found a kind of solar system, they use solar panels to heat up air, what they use for ventilating woodchips etc. (www.cona.at) It looks interesting, but don't know or it is easy to combine with a boiler for wintertime when there is hardly any sun. Are there more systems like theirs?
Many thanks in advance!

 

[rollestonpark]

Most guys I know drying grain with a woodchip boiler try to use waste wood, since it cheaper (but boiler augers needs to cope with it).
They also use a drying floor which the grain is stored on over winter permanently until sold.
Normally they dry the grain slow over an extended period.
To dry grain quick and keep up with a combine isn't going to happen. (unless boiler is massive)
We have an automated woodtek drier for drying chip. But not sure that would work for grain.
But I like it because it slowly drops chip out automatically when dry and sends it to the dry storage bin for CHP automatically.
I just fill it once a day with telehander. That needs about 100kw in summer and 150-200kw in winter to run it.

 

[Doing it for the kids]

You will need 150 kw+ I would have said.

@renewablejohn is good with solar drying.

 

[Cruiser_79]

Okay thanks! We don’t need to keep up with the combine. But sometimes it is getting wet early in the evening while the harvesting still goes quite good. So if we can dry a part we have a kind of buffer. The grain isn’t stored but goes immediately to the buyer, who charge drying costs for everything above 15%. If we could dry 150 tons a year it would be great. I think I will only use willow and other species branches for firing the boiler. If possible for the boiler I could get round bales of roadside hay for free. But I’m afraid it will make too much ashes.
The sawmill waste is good stuff and could make some money when selling. If I have a buyer I would rather sell it than burn it. To avoid problems with augers and drying I want to screen all chips to remove fines and the oversized chips. So 150 kw is probably needed for drying 50 m3 a time?

 

[Cruiser_79]

Since I have a sawmill myself it could be interesting to make a wooden dry floor. Where can I find the mesh material for what costs? And what width of the mesh and the distance between channels should be best? I see both really narrow mesh and wide mesh panels. Goal is a combination of woodchip and grain drying, but probably mostly woodchip.

Wide mesh:

Narrow;

 

[rollestonpark]

The narrow is the type I've seen in grain stores. Wider seems to be what people use on wood chip floors. (I think, but don't quote on this).
But a local company to me has a drying floor like the wide one above and he puts shredded waste wood on it for drying for boilers.
They always seem to have the floor blocked with wood dust, then the air can't get through it.
They have a mobile diesel air compressor and are blowing it out all the while.
Not sure whether this happens to everyone, or the floor is a bad design or chip is too dusty.
I don't know what it is...

 

[Cruiser_79]

They always seem to have the floor blocked with wood dust, then the air can't get through it.
They have a mobile diesel air compressor and are blowing it out all the while.
Not sure whether this happens to everyone, or the floor is a bad design or chip is too dusty.

Can imagine that the dust is sticky in the beginning and blocks the mesh. That's why I want to screen them before storing, drying and burning. Maybe try it with a standard potatoe hopper first with the roller sets set to a minimum. For drying the bigger chips won't be a real problem. But does anyone know something about the prices of the mesh panels?
And what about using roadside vegetation/reed for firing up a boiler, or maybe mixing with woodchips?

 

[wilber]

The mesh panels are called "bridge slot" as for price no idea.

Bridge slot perforation - RMIG

 

[Tomr10]

Try Olly blogs on you tube

 

[Thick Farmer]

Will have around 75m2 of bridgeslot available shortly if anyone is interested.

 

[quattro]

Since I have a sawmill myself it could be interesting to make a wooden dry floor. Where can I find the mesh material for what costs? And what width of the mesh and the distance between channels should be best? I see both really narrow mesh and wide mesh panels. Goal is a combination of woodchip and grain drying, but probably mostly woodchip.

Wide mesh:
View attachment 991201

Narrow;
View attachment 991202

There’s lots using the concrete and wide mesh ones up here
pellcroft engineering Lincoln