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Natural air grain drying
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sdPete
Posted 9/28/2006 00:42 (#47250 - in reply to #47113)
Subject: RE: Natural air grain drying



Beresford SD
Run the fans continuous. I have two 24' bins, same fans, and have experimented, the one with the fan turned off at night or during rainy weather took longer to dry than the one that ran all the time.

There will be considerable difference in drying time depending on your volume of corn, 4000 bu will take more than 33% more time than 3000 bu. IF you have 4000 bu and your CFM is 4, the time to dry will be much longer than if you have 3000 bu and your CFM is 5.

If you have stirring equipment in the bin, I would suggest shutting it off. Unheated air will not take the corn to single digit moisture this time of year, some studies show an efficiency gain when a drying front is allowed to move through the corn mass. In-bin equipment which uses a bottom sweep to remove the dry corn from the bottom of the bin is designed with that principle in mind. You can use a long rod to probe for the drying layer, it will move easier in the dry corn than the wet. As the drying layer nears the surface, you can sample the dry zone for moisture and if necessary stop the fan and use the stirrator to mix the corn if it got too dry.

My guess on drying time for your conditions would be 12-15 days. You did not tell your bin size, but generally a bigger diameter bin with a shallow layer of corn dries considerably faster than a smaller bin with the same volume of corn which ends up being a deeper layer, even if fan size is the same. Deeper layer of corn packs tighter more resistance to air flow.
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