Occasional use grain dryer set ups

[BreadWinner]

Poorfarmer do you have NG or propane?
First use your existing hopper bins, they will work fine. We have ours located behind our straight row of bins, out of the way. Look at it like a opportunity, your not the only one so maybe some custom drying will help pay for the setup.
If your dryer is too far gone start looking for a continuous batch dryer, 180-450 bushel. Make sure you know how much power you have available and how much the dryer needs. 3 phase or single? Do you need augers? You can buy used and put electric motors on them. There is a few used dryers on Kijiji if you need to find one.

[poorboy]

Poorfarmer do you have NG or propane?
First use your existing hopper bins, they will work fine. We have ours located behind our straight row of bins, out of the way. Look at it like a opportunity, your not the only one so maybe some custom drying will help pay for the setup.
If your dryer is too far gone start looking for a continuous batch dryer, 180-450 bushel. Make sure you know how much power you have available and how much the dryer needs. 3 phase or single? Do you need augers? You can buy used and put electric motors on them. There is a few used dryers on Kijiji if you need to find one.

I have natural gas in my yard, but think it can only provide a million btu’s. Old vertec uses propane. Long term it would be nice to have natural gas, but not sure what that would cost.

Only single phase power that is capable of running 15 hp of aeration fans. My old vertec used a tractor for the fan and then everything else on the dryer and wet bin was electric and automatic. Dry auger used a gas motor that was throttled back and wired to shut down with the dryer. It sort of worked, but was Mickey Mouse.

I have purchased a 100kW genset a few years ago to power aeration fans at bins that are scattered all around the farm and hopefully it could be used to run an automated dryer. Large single phase power service here comes with a $400/month service fee. I only really hope to use a dryer for 5-7 days a year on average.

Perhaps looking to get a larger natural gas service and purchasing a used natural gas generator in the future.

Biggest use for a dryer here will be to start threshing sooner after a rain. Years ago I had a hard time getting my continuous flow dryer set because wheat is 18 at noon, 16 by 4 pm and dry by 9 pm. Because wettest wheat was in the bottom of the wet bin it comes out last, so I would just get the dryer going on 18 moisture and by then the next stuff coming into the dryer is like 16 and the afternoon air has warmed up and started to lose humidity. Such a pain to use for 1 day that it never gets used. I just wait a day for the sun to get it too dry. I also have lots of crop share landlords, so have to clean out dryer between owners.

Problem with not using the dryer at all is I could have had 7 more days of harvesting done on what was #1 wheat instead of having it sit out in the weather the last 2 weeks.

Would an autobatch drier work easy and on its own for days when wheat starts at 18 moisture and gets to dry or almost dry by the end of the day?

With remote bins and genset power it is not really effective to drop the 18 moisture wheat in an air bin and run the fan (and genset) for 2 weeks to dry the 18 wheat.

[BreadWinner]

We run our 1116 GSI off of a 200 amp service with a 7hp and 10hp electric auger motors. It is propane and works great. NG will be about 1/2 the price of propane but takes a bit to get hooked up and inspected. You can set the dry time up or down depending on the moisture as the grain changes through the day. It has automatic moisture controls if your smart enough to use them, I am not. We have 2 wet bins, 1 for really tough and the other to use when it gets a bit dryer. We added the 2nd after a couple years.
Get a plan and get at it quick, you can always bin in air bins and dry a bit later. A dryer wont make you money but will save your but on a crappy year.

[BreadWinner]

You could always get your neighbors together and start a small coop and pool your resources to get it up and going. Maybe each has part of the puzzle to get it going.

[Guest]

electricians are always amazed when they come to our yard , but we are running 2 shops , lights and block heaters in two pole sheds , a house , a greenhouse, a 250 bu superb automatic grain dryer, up to 4 fans at once and 2 bee incubators off a 200 amp service . have never tripped main . even got the guy wiring new shop to check main to see if it was welded shut .