new to me dryer need advice

[caseman]

I bought a Morridge 8440 batch grain dryer last week with 500 gallon propane tank.

What would it approx cost to dry durum from 20 - 21 moisture down to 14 moisture? Wondering how long 500 gallons of propane will last?????

I have 30 000 - 35 000 bu. to dry,not looking foward to it. The farmer that sold me the dryer has had 71 calls about it.

[icelander]

we have an older morridge batch dryer and they are reasonable to run. Never quite figured out exact cost, but is way cheaper then one is chared at the elevator. One way to keep cost down is to run a very small tractor on the dryer. We run an old 65 massey diesel that burns just under a litre of diesel for every hour of use. That really helps on cost.

[caseman]

going to run 970 case tractor on it,very good on fuel.

[mbratrud]

Depends on the BTU's but at 500K BTU your probably going to burn at least 20 litres per hour and your price is min is .40 cents per litre. Probably more like .45 cents per litre.

[redleaf]

You may already have thought of this but you need to put an adaptor on the pto of the tractor and run the 1000 rpm shaft. this will save a lot of diesel fuel and like previous posts state you will dry it down for a lot less than elevator charges. One question I have is why don't you want to take it down to dry? you will dry it down to 10 or 9.5 for less than anyone else. But you will be there for a while, drying canola is slow. Good luck

[Ron]

I have the same dryer and when I got it I did hard math the first year but dont remember and it doesnt matter any more to me. It costs what it costs.

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/eng3043/$FILE/307.pdf

I dont do fancy links but this is the PAMI report on your dryer.
There is a grease fitting just above the clean out door under the hopper. grease the hell out of it every load.
Loading throught the hopper is painfully slow, I would use a 10" auger to load it.
Should take 3 hours drying to drop 20% wheat to 14 %, still held a poor #3. If it is definately feed you can use more heat and maybe save a bit of time.
Probably 4-4.5 hours per load with filling/cooling/emptying time. Slow and painful to be sure but it does work.
Good luck

[wedino]

Cool it down in an air bin if you can, will save some time.

[redleaf]

Reread original post and now realize you are drying durum not canola

[caseman]

Can i dry from 21 moisture down to 14 moisture in one pass????

durum is going to an ethanol plant

[Ron]

With recirculating batch dryer one pass is fine. The settings in the operators manual are to high temp though. You will have grade loss if you go that high. Read the PAMI report linked above and it will get you close. I have dried 18% canola, 20 something HRS with no problems, just have patience (and cooling in the dryer/as it unloads doesnt take long in this weather. extra 10-15 minutes/load instead of cooling in aeration bin if you have that option)