old school grain drying

[A1an]

We dry woodchip all year round, relative humidity isn't that much of an issue, takes a little longer to dry to spec in winter.

Can you adjust the power on the fans? Fit inverter? They are pretty powerful, you don't need anywhere near that power, they will also be very expensive to run, you think PV will produce your requirements? The problem I see with your setup is that the fans are going to suck your boiler of all its heat and the resulting air you produce will be cool.

We have a 500kw boiler, a 500kw heat exchanger and a 15kw fan. The air going through the chips is 45/50 degrees. We dont stir either, just let it cook and take it off the floor when the dry line is halfway up the chip stack, this gives us 20-25% MC

 

[Lincsman]

How much dry wood chip does it take to dry another tonne of wood chip?

 

[A1an]

Unfortunately that's a bit of a hard one to answer as its not an exact science.

Too many variables involved like moisture content and chip quality of fuel being used, moisture content of chip before drying, moisture content required in final product, time of year and the setup it is being used in.

 

[Lincsman]

Unfortunately that's a bit of a hard one to answer as its not an exact science.

Too many variables involved like moisture content and chip quality of fuel being used, moisture content of chip before drying, moisture content required in final product, time of year and the setup it is being used in.

Appreciate that, but I hope it would be less than a tonne?

 

[A1an]

anywhere from 4.5 - 6.5 ton dried from 1 ton of fuel

 

[Turra farmer]

Anyone looked at trailer driers ?

 

[farmerfred86]

We dry woodchip all year round, relative humidity isn't that much of an issue, takes a little longer to dry to spec in winter.

Can you adjust the power on the fans? Fit inverter? They are pretty powerful, you don't need anywhere near that power, they will also be very expensive to run, you think PV will produce your requirements? The problem I see with your setup is that the fans are going to suck your boiler of all its heat and the resulting air you produce will be cool.

Yes sorry should have mentioned we have inverters so can run these at 10% power (or run a single fan at 50%). Running them slower also seems to keep the temperature up as we get better draw from the heat exchanger. Our solar PV will run these without any issues. The fans are very effiecient and rarely require any extra heat as they compress the air to give a very low humidity in the tunnel.
Getting the final moisture right looks like a tricky balance! Your instinct would suggest drying until the dry line is all the way to the top?!

 

[A1an]

Depends on your final moisture requirements. We are looking for 25%. The chips on the bottom will be bone dry and the chips at the top of the stack could be wetter than when they were put on due to the moisture being forced up. The knack is knowing at what point to take the chips off the floor. The picture I posted earlier showing the dry line, that's about 25% once it's all mixed together.

 

[farmerfred86]

ok thanks, we aim for 20%. Any drier is too dry. Helpful to know not to dry all the way through! Will have a go in the winter/spring time.

 

[Kagri]

Would it be possible to dry quadrant (120x70) bales of hay with a drying floor?

If hay was baled at 30% moisture could you bring it down to 10%

I was lookin a a Veda hay dryer but was thinking would a system like this suit better as I would have options to dry grain/woodchip etc all year round

 

[St.Isidore]

Would it be possible to dry quadrant (120x70) bales of hay with a drying floor?

If hay was baled at 30% moisture could you bring it down to 10%

I was lookin a a Veda hay dryer but was thinking would a system like this suit better as I would have options to dry grain/woodchip etc all year round

We finish off conventional square bales on our mesh floor tray dryer and it works really well. We have two trays and for grain we blow one side at a time but for hay we blow both sides and stack the bales about 5 high or around 8ft. Sometimes we have to turn the bales on top half way through but we dry all our hay like this as getting a window for good hay in Scotland is not easy! It does mean we have to cut in batches big enough to fit on the dryer so we will maybe cut four times instead of one big cut. It takes the gamble of good settled weather out the equation and makes excellent quality hay but does make our hay more expensive. Usually it’s just a case of driving off the last few percent of moisture, most of drying is obviously done in field.