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Flameless Grain drying

8K views 10 replies 9 participants last post by  Saskpro 
#1 ·
I'm thinking of renting an Arctic Therm Heater to hook up to my aeration bins to dry my wheat, if I get an chance to start up again. They have 400,000btu-1,200,000btu heaters but I'm not sure what size would work best.
I have 5,000bu flat bottom bins 3-10,000bu and 3-15,000bu bins that I can use. The 15,000bu bins are easiest to move grain in and out as they have a grain loop system to move grain. The other bins I would have to move grain out with augers and trucks then back in to mix.

Not sure what the best way to do this and this might be a every year option as I have went from 2-8.90NH to one 780TT CLAAS just to gain a couple extra days combining.

Any suggestions you have would be great.

Thanks
 
#2 ·
I dont think there is anything special about the flameless heating units that you can rent. Much cheaper options that you can own if you want to have something permanent. Such as:

Propane or Nat Gas (prefered if you can get the gas lines in now)

Air-o-matic heater from air-o-don mechanical in Saskatoon.
Inline heaters from big US guys like Sukup
Inline heaters from Canadian guys like Edwards
Frost fighter and other brands sell Natural gas or propane powered units that you can even add a thermostat to. (kijiji or brand new)


Diesel fired units.
Torpedo heaters in 125,000 to 225,000 btu's can be bought all over, just aim heater into fan
Frost fighter or other brands in diesel powered work just like nat gas version only more expensive to run but easier to find used.


All of the above options will do the exact same thing as the flameless units that are advertised on kijiji. I found in my limited experience that things worked best by using the heater all day and then turning it off at night. Really helped limit the overdrying in the bottom of the bin and made it a little easier to mix the grain to average moisture, but that was only with 2 bins that I dryed in the last week.

Inline fans work much better if the heater is added between the fan and the bin, such as the sukup heater. That is because inline fans use "air over" motors, which means that they have much poorer cooling fans in them because they rely on the steady air blowing over them to cool the motors. Once you start adding supplemental heat you screw that up and shorten the motors life span. Centrifugal fans with the motor on the outside are the way to go when adding supplemental heat that is added before the fan and sucked in.

Temperature cables in your bins are a must. Moisture and temperature are probably even better.

Not sure how much power you have, but you want to run as many bins as you can as early as you can. When I first tried in bin drying in 2005 I only had 1 bin set up and would fill it and then dry for 4-5 days and cool for 1/2 day and then redo the process again. But because you can only fill the bins 1/3 full in canola and 1/2-2/3 full in wheat it tooks months to dry it all. Much more expensive to dry in December than in late October or early november. Grain also gets much more overdry when it gets that cold outside because you have to heat the air so much more, the humidity in it gets close to 0%. Wheat in the bottom of the bin was testing like 5% moisture and all shrivelled up and shrunk. Very expensive to sell grain that dry and very hard to mix it in with tougher stuff to average dry. Takes like 2 parts of 20% wheat to mix with 1 part 5% to get to average dry. It is very hard to do. In my situation it would have been much better to have set up multiple bins to dry with at the same time and been done by Nov 15 instead of Dec 15. I did not have the power to run the extra fans, but in hindsight I should have bought or rented a genset for extra power.
 
#4 ·
Also keep in mind that if you are burning propane or Nat Gas, there is no advantage to indirect or flameless heaters, since the exhaust is harmless, and for max efficiency shouldn't be wasted. With the Herman Nelson type heater we use on propane, I duct the exhaust in with the indirect heat. Which is a pain to have to set up everytime.
 
#5 ·
You are talking about some big bins. It has been my experience that a 2000 bushel bin dries in 1/3 the time of a 4000 bushel bin. I expect that the fan run time and heating requirement only multiply as the bins get taller. So a1/3 or half full might be the way to go.
 
#8 ·
I would be cautious with a diesel burner. Had a sample of barley come through the office that had such a bad smell to it that it was rejected account odour, so bad that it would not even go into the feed market. Either the burner was not working proper, or there was not enough air flow to move the fumes, but it was an awful smell.
 
#9 ·
Frost fighters on the used market have heat exchangers that are prone to warping and cracking . If you switch to the flagro (made in canada, black heater brand, 400,000 BTU) they use thicker 301 WELDED stainless, the frostfighter herman nelsons are pressed thinner material, that are also subject to warping . You can check your frost fighter to see if its warped by looking into the air outlets and making sure they are straight. Kijiji has Flagros that come up from time to time, refurb units are harder to find. The extra $ for the flagros are worth it, as they tend to be more reliable.
 
#10 ·
Gone with a different kind of drying system. I have installed a Guardian Grain Dryer for this season. It is a boiler system hooked up to radiators that are place in front of the fans. It was less then half the price of setting up a grain dryer. Had it built so that it can do 2 15,000bu bins at the same time and if I wanted to I can expand the system to add more bins. Looking forward running it this year.
 
#11 ·
Adaptive Agriculture in Saskatoon has transitions now that allow for hooking two frost fighter type heaters to the same low speed / high cfm fan, with the controls to go along with it (so that you don't starve those low speed units) for 10-40000 bushel in floor aeration. If you already have the heaters, worth checking out: Aeration fan adapter plates - Bin Transitions
 

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