Grain Drying Is Not Simple
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 0:02
Grain drying can look deceptively simple. Grain comes in wet, it goes through the dryer, grain comes out dry. But anyone who has spent time around a grain dryer knows there’s a lot happening between those two points. Moisture changes, weather changes, grain quality changes, throughput changes, and every adjustment an operator makes can affect something else. Energy consumption, grain quality, storage life, capacity, and ultimately profitability. So what does an experienced grain drying professional actually pay attention to? That’s where we’re going in this special two-part edition of the Whole Grain Podcast. Hello, I’m Jim Lenz, your host and producer of the Whole Grain Podcast and Director of Global Education and Training at GEAPS, the Grain Elevator and Processing Society. My guest is Rodie Jelleberg, Grain Drying Manager with Superior Grain Equipment. Roadie recently joined GEAPS for our webinar, Grain Drying for Quality, Safety and Profit. There was tremendous interest in that program, so we wanted to continue the learning, but do something very different. Instead of another presentation, we’re putting Roadie into the situations grain professionals actually encounter during harvest. In this first episode, we’re going to talk about reading the dryer, managing moisture variability, knowing when to make an adjustment, and when not to, along with overdrying, shrink, throughput, grain quality, and energy. Then in our second episode, we’re changing the format. We’ll put Roadie into a series of real-world situations and simply ask him, Rodie, what would you do? Together, these two episodes are designed to be a practical grain drying resource you can listen to at the facility, on your drive to work, or wherever you listen to the Whole Grain Podcast. Let’s get started.
A Five Minute Dryer Check
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 2:04
Beyond the set point, making better grain drying decisions during harvest. Rodie, let’s put you right in the middle of harvest. You walk into a grain facility you’ve never visited before, the dryer is running, and you’ve got maybe five minutes to get a sense of how well that dryer is performing. What are you looking at first?
Rodie Jelleberg 2:26
First thing I’m going to look at and is their readout and displays. Most dryers these days have an automatic moisture controller of some sort. So the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to look at the readouts on the moisture controller to see what the dryer is actually doing and compare it to what it should be doing. Look at their set point, see how hot they’re drying, if they’re pushing it, you know, past where I’m comfortable or the comfort the customer’s comfortable drying at. And then I’m going to use my senses. I’m going to go outside and I’m going to listen to see if things sound normal. You can hear the difference in airflow coming out of fans that if it’s pushing enough air versus if it’s just idling. I’m going to use my sense of smell to make sure that the drying process has a specific smell. You can just tell as you’re driving around the country, if you’re not, you know, as a you know, as a layperson or a you know farmer or whatever, you know what that’s when when it’s harvest time and it’s drying season. You can just smell it’s just that warm corn smell. You know, but you can also tell the difference between corn that’s starting to caramelize and getting too hot. You know, so I’m I’m gonna smell, make sure that things smell right. And then I’m gonna visually look at the dryer to make sure that there’s steam coming off of it. That typically you’ll have the bees wings are collecting at the at the very top, meaning we are taking out moisture and we’re releasing those bees wings, so we’re we’re getting that, making sure we have steam and not smoke. Steam is light gray, smoke is dark. So the biggest thing is it’s just using your your senses to make sure that everything is right.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 4:21
That’s fantastic. So you just talked about the the sound, so what you’re hearing or not hearing, and you talked about your sight and also the smell. But what numbers immediately get your attention?
Throughput Temperature And Airflow Basics
Rodie Jelleberg 4:35
Throughput and temperature really is the two things I’m most concerned about. You know, the drying process, the the three major factors is time, heat, and airflow. So I mean, it’s time spent in the dryer is related to your throughput. Your temperature affects what’s your throughput, how fast you’re gonna be going through there, and your airflow is gonna determine kind of that that residual time in the dryer. So it’s all three are related. So to see what that dryer is actually doing, one I’m gonna look at what that dryer is rated at. If it’s rated at 2,000 bushels an hour under certain conditions, and you know, if the conditions are close to ideal or or you know, everything is always rated at your ideal conditions, which is roughly 60 degrees ambient temperature, 50% relative humidity. But, you know, we all know that we rarely dry in those conditions. So I’m gonna make an educated guess based on that. And looking at the chart, you know, if this dryer’s rated at 2,000, I’m thinking it should be doing at least 1600. And if I’m looking at the throughput rate and it’s only doing a thousand, okay, now I gotta figure out why.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 5:59
I was just gonna ask, what would you ask your operator? So it sounds like you’ve described some of those things. Anything else?
Rodie Jelleberg 6:06
So it depends on what they’re what they’re wanting to do. Typically, like with my customers, the very first time we go out and commission a dryer, especially guys that are you know new to having a dryer or maybe new to having a mixed flow, because that’s what we what we sell, you know, if they’ve had a tower dryer, if they’ve maybe they’ve had an in-bin system, or they’ve just used, you know, dryeration with their their bin fans, if it’s completely foreign to them, you know, everybody says, Well, what are we gonna run at for temperature? I’m like, Well, I said let’s
Choosing Quality Versus Throughput
Rodie Jelleberg 6:40
let’s take a step back. Are you looking for throughput? Are you looking for grain quality? Or are you looking for a combination of both? 95% of the time, everybody says, I’m looking for a combination of both. So we’re maybe not gonna push that dryer to its limits because it’s all based on temperature. So, and we’re gonna run with numbers on corn. So, corn typically, your standard yellow number two corn, your drying temperatures is anywhere from 160 to 230, let’s say. So just depending on moisture content of that corn and the quality, your test weight, what it’ll take. Now, obviously, as we run the temperature hotter, that corn’s gonna come through there faster because we’re doing more of that drying process, but we’re also potentially risking overdrying. The hotter the temperature is that we’re running that through or running it through faster. Some of the things that guys don’t think about, the faster we run that through the drier in the heat chamber, it’s also the faster we’re running it through on the cooling chamber. So we don’t have the residual time of cooling as we would if we were running a lower temperature. So that corn is going to come out hotter. And then we also have the risk of if we’re running in, you know, especially as you get into that sub-freezing temperatures, you know, below 30. It’s hot and it’s hitting the ambient air, we have to worry about shock cooling. With shock cooling, that hot grain is hitting the cold air and it’s getting that shock treatment, then you gotta worry about risking cracking your kernels. All that that energy and all that money that you spent throughout the year getting that product all the way to this point, and then you end up wrecking it in the process of the final story, you know, step before it goes into the bin. So, all of that being said, typically, like if we’re taking out five points, I said we’re gonna run anywhere from 180 to 210 degrees, excuse me, plenum temperature. And if we’re looking for that combination of both, we’re probably gonna be at that 190 to 200 mark. If we’re looking for strictly quality, we’re gonna be at 180. If we’re looking for throughput, we’re gonna be at 210. Same, same theory as we get into like 10% removal. We’re gonna look at doing, you know, anywhere from 200 to 230, with 200 being more on the quality side, 230 more on the throughput side.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 9:28
Yeah, so you’re kind of talking through those first observations, data, sounds, operator questions, and indicators that matter. Can an experienced operator almost develop a feel for a dryer beyond the controls? Are there sights, these sounds, patterns, and behaviors that tell you something isn’t quite right?
Rodie Jelleberg 9:50
Uh, I I would like to think so. I can definitely tell, you know, and I I haven’t been in the industry a long time, but I’ve been in the industry long enough. And dryers, you know, when we took on the dryer program, that was kind of my baby, and I kind of just took to it. And I learned from some of the the really experienced operators and grain drying experts. I mean, I I learned a lot from uh I had a really close relationship with John Geneg, which he taught me a lot about grain drying in general and just the concepts. And you know, I was kind of thrown to the wolves the first couple years, so I learned really fast, learned really quick, and then you kind of learn year to year what the what the dryers are capable of, and you do kind of get that that sixth sense of, you know, okay, I know kind of what this dryer is capable of. I can kind of tell what it’s doing, and you can all you can kind of tell when something’s not quite right. And there’s other times when customers will call and say, you know, my my dryer’s not, you know, performing up to up to capacity, you know, and it’s it’s like, okay, but you’ve had your dryer for five years, the past four years, it’s worked just fine, and you’ve been raving about it, and now you’ve got one one year, and then you get another customer saying the same thing, and another customer saying the same thing. Well, that leads to something has changed. It, you know, during the season. We had a season last year that was like that. Everybody was their capacities were down, and you know, after the fourth call, I think I finally was like, something has changed this year, guys. It’s not your dryer, because everybody in this certain region is having the same thing. So we attributed that last year to the fact that I think we didn’t have the heat early in the growing season like we should. It kind of stunted the corn in a certain sense. You know, there’s other years you have light test weight. Well, light test weight is completely different. You got to run your temperatures way lower because you’ll risk basically cooking the corn and completely damaging it and having fires. So that’s your original question. I think, yeah, an experienced operator, guys that customers will talk about their dryer guy as being kind of a dryer whisperer. You just kind of you get a feel for it. You can you can just tell when you get onto a site kind of
When Experience Becomes A Sixth Sense
Rodie Jelleberg 12:28
what you’re what you’re up against.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 12:30
That is so interesting, Roadie. Sometimes respond to a problem is important, but sometimes constantly responding can actually become the problem. Incoming moisture changes, the operator makes an adjustment. A little while later, the results aren’t what they expected, so they adjust it again. And then again, can operators get themselves into trouble by chasing the dryer? Oh, absolutely.
Rodie Jelleberg 12:56
So there’s a couple anecdotes to this. One being on the control side, along that thought process. There are dryer when we talk about the automated or automatic moisture controllers out there. There were units out there that would basically look at your incoming moisture and your outgoing moisture. So with the automated moisture controllers, how they work is typically you’ll have an incoming sensor and an outgoing sensor. And what it does with the information from there is kind of what determines what makes a good automated moisture controller. So we use the dryer master system. Dryermaster does a phenomenal job. They have an incoming sensor, an outgoing sensor. We know how many bushels are in process between top and bottom sensor. And what it does is it builds models. So it’s constantly learning and it’s comparing numbers. So the first couple hours, it’s it’s kind of getting knowledge and it’s figuring that out. And it’s saying, okay, it came in at 20%, and I’m expecting it to come out at 15%, but it’s actually coming out at 16%. And something’s changed, and I don’t quite know what, but what it’s doing though is it’s checking that in real time, but it’s it’s got that database of knowledge already. So it’s already doing the checks and it’s kind of adjusting, and it’s it works great. It it’s it’s not a hundred percent accurate, but it’s within target above or below a half a half a point, usually about 95% of the time. There’s other systems out there that we’ve dealt with that run that and it’s more of the the old school manual mentality of we know what the moisture coming in is, we know what the moisture going out is, but if it’s different and it’s not the target, it’s gonna adjust our speed either to a high set point or a low set point. And it’s doing this, and it’s basically it’s not infinite adjustable, so it’s basically just kicking it out at a at a higher rate or a lower rate. Well what it’s doing is it’s constantly chasing. And you can get into the same situation if you’re doing it manually, because if you’re only if you’re adjusting it, not giving it time to re-react, and not looking at what your results are coming out, you could you could basically be making changes that by the time that that change has taken effect, you’ve made five other changes, and now you have no idea what actually changed
Why Chasing Adjustments Backfires
Rodie Jelleberg 15:50
in that dryer, including what your product is doing inside that dryer. So patience is a virtue, it’s also key to grain drying. And you have to consider when you make a change, how many bushels do you have in process, and at that throughput rate, especially for for wetter grains and stuff that’s taking, you know, running at say half rate, if your dryer’s rated at 2,000 bushels an hour, you’re only running a thousand because of the you’re running really wet stuff through there. Well, now a change that you make isn’t going to happen in an hour, it’s gonna happen in two hours. So it’s that thought process of small changes over longer amounts of time, and then just be patient and make sure that you realize what your change did by the time it actually makes its way all the way through. A complete, and we say usually a complete dryer load.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 16:49
Interesting. You know, good experimental design is really changing one variable at a time, and so you can’t keep track of it. You you don’t know what is the the cause and the effect. How important is understanding leg or response time and how long before you truly know the result of an adjustment?
Rodie Jelleberg 17:11
Well, that’s that’s what I was just getting at is that lag time is is crucial. You need to understand that that whatever your dryer rate is, that’s how long it’s gonna take to see that change. You might start seeing you’ll see evidence of that change earlier. Because by all means, it’s if you’re if you’re adjusting a temperature, you know, it it’s gonna come out your your grain temperatures will probably come out a little bit hotter. You’re probably your your if you’re running your automatic moisture controller, it will adjust for that. But whatever that that throughput rate is, again, if you’ve got 2,000 bushels in process and you’re running at 2,000 bushels an hour, that’s one hour. You make a change, and in an hour you’ll know exactly what that change did. If it’s running at 3,000 bushels an hour, it’s gonna take a half hour. So you’ll you’ll see that change in a half hour. If it’s running half rate, it’s gonna take it’s an inverse relationship. The other caveat to that is the stuff that you have no control of that may change, such as weather conditions. But again, that’s why we want to change as few variables as possible to actually see what we’re what that that change is gonna do.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 18:39
That all makes sense. So we’re talking response time, laid, cause and effect, and how repeated adjustments can make troubleshooting harder. Very good. Thank you, Roadie, for clarity
Sponsor Message
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 18:50
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Managing Big Swings In Moisture
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 19:32
We talk about incoming grain moistures, though it’s one number. Harvest doesn’t necessarily work that way. Green from another field arrives, conditions change during the day, of course. Moisture varies within loads. How much does incoming moisture variability complicate good dryer operation?
Rodie Jelleberg 19:53
That’s a huge factor. So I’ll go back to the automated moisture controller. We try to, again, dryer master does an excellent job with this. The biggest thing with that is we always tell guys make sure you give it a good solid day or two to learn. Once you once it’s got that good solid day of learning and it’s got, you know, kind of references it can keep referring to and checking against that model. It knows how the dryer runs. It’s a little computer, it’s doing all its calculating. It does an excellent job. If you got a swing from, let’s say you’re coming in at 20% out of this field, now you got a field that comes in at 23. Well, it’s gonna see that and it’s gonna say, okay, I know that we’re gonna have to change something, we’re gonna have to slow down, but we’re gonna do it over the next hour or whatever it is. And it will slowly adjust for that. It does a better job than a human as far as calculating that. I mean, there’s you could do it, you could be get close, but you’re you’d basically have to sit there and just constantly do that. And again, it it would go back to I think myself personally, I would even struggle to as an experienced dryer guy, just to get that to nail that perfectly. You’ll ne you’re you’ll never get it perfect. So that’s one way that we combat moisture variability. So the problem lies, and this was an actual experience we had last year, out in central North Dakota, we had a customer that had a field that was a mile and a half long. And from north to south, the north end froze during harvest. And so the moisture availability in that field from north to south was anywhere from 16% all the way to 23%. So that is something though that you cannot account for so. even even the automated moisture controller can’t account for that because it’s such a very it’s such a wide swing and as they’re going through the combine and going through the grain cart and then into the system that all gets blended together. So how you know and you’re you’re not talking like a little you know a five gallon pail of 16% in there mixed in with a five gallon pail of 23%. It’s such a mixed bag that’s where it comes down to good operation and just being patient and running those lower temps. You know a lot of guys want to especially on something like that where it’s they want to get it off the field because it did freeze or something you really have to pay attention to what your dryer’s doing and run lower temps. If you’re running you know in a situation like that if if the customer would have called and said what do I want to be running this at? And they’re probably said well you probably and it’s not what you want to hear but I would run it at say 150 degrees and run it at just basically a constant rate through there don’t don’t worry about running the the moisture controller. Just basically put it in manual mode and just kind of let it do what it wants to do and just try to get your best blend out of that out of that product.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 23:23
Very nice that’s a great example of variable variability and moisture such a unique situation there.
Rodie Jelleberg 23:30
What what should operators know about the grain entering the dryer so the wetter the product the more resilient it is to temperature so you can run hotter temps with wetter product there’s that that cling factor of you know bees wings on corn seed pods on soybeans things like that that aren’t going to release until they get some heat and they get a little bit dry there’s that wet cling factor. So you’re going to have things like that. You’re also going to have you got to take into consideration your angle of repose on wet product and what that means is the wetter wetter product will stack differently when it enters the dryer so having having your fill sensor in their correct position. So we’ve had this too we’ve you know we on our our dryer we came up with a initially we had a three position set point for where we could put that fill switch well it became so variable and just all the all the different variables out there between product and moisture that that it’s basically on a salmon ladder so we can move it up and down just on on pegs and it’s I think the piece itself is probably 18 inches tall. So we have 18 inches of adjustment on that fill switch just because if it’s wet product we need it at the very bottom so that it hits first. If it’s super dry we raise it up to the top so that we can
Upstream Issues That Mimic Dryer Trouble
Rodie Jelleberg 25:20
keep that dryer folder longer. Whole grain podcast listeners may be wondering how do you distinguish a dryer performance problem from variability upstream so part of that goes back to just that his having that historical data and whether that’s in your mind we typically recommend you know keep your keep your information keep your your slips from your automated moisture controller you know keep a journal something so that you’ve got data from year to year so you know what your dryer is doing. If you’re if it’s a brand new dryer it’s it’s hard to tell for probably an operator especially if they’ve never dried before. So that’s where you know you lean on experts have a relationship with your dryer guy that they’re going to know you know what’s what’s normal performance what’s abnormal performance but if you have that history and you know what your dryer does from year to year then you’ll kind of have an idea of yeah there’s something something’s wrong here or something’s not quite right it’s not it’s not working correctly and then just look at did something change is do we have different conditions? Did we have different growing season? And that’s maybe not something that the operator is going to necessarily know off top of his head. That’s where you know referring back to your dryer guy or you’re your neighbors I mean are they seeing the same thing? Are they is it conditions that’s a that’s a regional condition that is something that happened in the field knowing your system that that’s a big thing and we’ve I’ve talked about that on numerous podcasts with industry people is I I a customer should know their system better than I do because you’ll know when it comes out out of the bin even if it’s if it’s coming out of the bin and you’re hauling it in and you’ve got a lot of forum material in there crack kernels and you’ve got a lot of meal or you know fine powdery stuff or if it’s you want to keep that in condition but you you should be checking all that stuff throughout the the process you know check it coming out of the combine is it’s is it is it coming out of the combine in good condition not a lot of breakage you know is it going into your system when it goes into the dryer check you know go up to the top of the dryer check the intake of the dryer is it coming out fine there is it coming out of the dryer cracked you know or you got a lot of foreign material coming out of the dryer a lot of guys will say well you know it it it’s it’s in the bin it’s got to be something in the in the dryer we just put the dryer in this year. And it’s like the dryer realistically the kernels moving through there are moving through there so slowly as well as the fact that they’re en masse so really the damage is not being done it’s it’s I want to say it’s it’s almost virtually impossible for the the process going through the dryer to actually cause breakage the breakage happens either in the process upstream as it’s going through the equipment whether it’s not being handled correctly whether it’s you know if you’re running through a leg, you’re running through too long of a spout you’re not using a deadhead you’re not using a cushion box you know in certain cases when it goes through the dryer it’s going through there gently and it’s coming out with a with a drag conveyor but is it happening when it’s coming out of the dryer by hitting a piece of equipment that’s you know got a choke point and it’s grinding or do we have a situation where it’s coming out hot versus the ambient and we’re getting that shock cooling and now we’re getting you know crack kernels that is now going through a a high speed piece of equipment air systems that’s that’s a big one too a lot of a lot of guys that are starting out and stuff they like to use air system pneumatic system so what that’s doing is it’s you know is you’re using basically high velocity air to move a stream of grain um they’re cheaper you can hit multiple bins with one system but the drawback is you know no matter how full you’re keeping that pipe you’re still creating a potential spot when moving stream of grain at high velocity every time it hits an elbow or it it exits or goes through a transition or a change there’s a potential for doing damage because you’re moving at the high velocities and that those changes and especially when you’re coming out of a dryer you’ve got that warm grain and you’re hitting that cooler air it there’s always that risk of potential damage.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 30:39
I was just going to ask you what problems get blamed on the grain dryer that aren’t actually dryer
Foreign Material And Dryer Fire Risk
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 30:45
problems. So you just offered a number of examples help listeners broaden their troubleshooting beyond the dryer itself. Any other things you may want to add as examples?
Rodie Jelleberg 30:55
Oh yeah I’ve got a perfect example so one of the big things that we always this goes back to when we first are visiting with our customers whether it’s when we’re doing our commissioning or sometimes even in the sales process is guys will ask well when fires start where do they usually start and why do they start? In the grain dryer and one of the first things I ask the customers are what are you running for a combine? And then you know what concave are you running in that combine? And it sounds like kind of a silly question you sometimes guys will tend to get offended because well now you’re gonna you’re the dryer guy and you’re gonna tell me how to run my combine but it’s not so much that it’s the fact that I’ve been out there and I’ve seen so many examples and there’s certain and I’m not going to point fingers because it’s actually the brand that I really like but you know it’s stuff I grew up on but there are certain models and certain types of combines that will do a better job taking the trash out of the product in the field when it’s coming out. So it’s the broken cobs it’s the lighter foreign material the stuff that’s actually not grain and not so much stocks but it’s it’s the the cobs and and stuff. So it has to do everything with the concave settings and you know on some of these the the newer models everything’s getting to be automated it they’re doing a much better job but some of the older models there’s a lot more adjustment and if you’re not constantly adjusting and I’m not telling guys that they have to be constantly adjusting but if the the settings aren’t quite right all the time you’re going to get some of that trash coming through and the lighter material will actually float to the ends of the dryer where it doesn’t move and as that stuff it just will kind of sit there and and it’ll it’ll kind of bubble or boil in the corners because it just doesn’t get sucked down into the dryer. So it’s sitting up there and it’s where all your hot dry air is because it’s all in that process and eventually that’s where it’ll get it’s not the the product starting on fire it’s the trash that basically starts a little smoldering fire. And so it every everything from the the process actually starts when it’s coming out of the field before it even gets to the dryer and that’s to keep your product as as forum material free as possible especially when you get that trash cleaners and stuff pre-cleaners help a lot if you’ve got the room you know and then post cleaners if you want to take out the extra bees wings and just the the foreign material the the crackage the breakage before you put it in the bin you know some of the some of the classes and stuff that um I’ve taken like through jeeps you know as far as grain quality the the cleaner and better that your product is going into that bin the easier it’s going to be to keep in storage and keep safe without spoiling.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 34:15
Very interesting so this low density foreign material congregates and that can actually smolder and heat that’s that’s really interesting. And of course like you said that starts in the field and and that can turn into a problem in in the green elevator. So we talked a little bit about moving upstream showing how the variable
The Real Cost Of Overdrying
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 34:35
incoming grain can look like a drier problem. Now let’s talk about something that can seem very small a single point of moisture across thousands or millions of bushels small differences aren’t necessarily small anymore.
Rodie Jelleberg 34:50
Let’s say a facility consistently dries grain a little more than necessary to think it might be better safe than sorry what actually happening economically when we’re overdrying grain well the first obvious answer to that question is and I don’t know that the if I sat down and penciled it out there’s it has to do with the thermodynamics and just how grain gives off moisture most of the varieties especially that I’ve dealt with around here it seems like it takes just as much energy to take the grain from 16 to 15 as it does from 20 to 16 so if you have the time and the ability to and let’s say you have a bin moisture system moisture manager that goes through and throughout the year it’s kicking the fans on when it needs to dry so that everything comes within you know equilibrium and you’re looking for that 15 target because that’s typically what everybody wants to shoot for is that 15 target. When we do like an energy audit to figure out what a grain dryer costs to run per bushel per point. So typically on a five point removal a dryer on natural gas is running anywhere from seven to eleven cents per bushel to dry. And that’s taken from 20 down to 15 of that the electrical cost is like fractions of a penny of that cost per bushel. So if you can save yourself a couple pennies in the process and then it’s only costing you a fraction of a penny to take that last point out in the bin you’re better off economically to be able to do that. Now not everybody has that luxury some guys need to get their stuff you know dried down right away and store it at that 15% because they don’t have a moisture manager system or they maybe don’t have the bin space so they need to dump it in the bin and basically get it to the elevator within weeks or days. So that might not always be feasible. But other guys that that that are trying to get sometimes you can get too hung up on getting it to a specific moisture. I’ve had customers in the past that especially with a new dryer because I want it I want to use it want to make sure it’s working and we’ll get out there and so we’ll okay what’s our what’s our target? We want to put it in the bin at 15 okay what’s it what’s the stuff in your wet bin currently at well most of it’s like 148 to 153 and I’ll kind of look at them dumbfounded and then I’ll just kind of take a step back and say that in the grand scheme of things as far as what the dryer considers dry is already dry. So the dryer master sees that as you know a half we’ll take that half point above and below as our target again. Everything is dry so like I compare to I’m I’m like the dryer master is saying you want me to dry it but it’s already dry what I I can’t dry it anymore. So sometimes just not getting hung up on being exactly precise because as I always I like to tell people that the drying grain drying is equal parts science and art. There’s a scientific component to it and part of it is just art. You just get a feel for it. Well said what happens with shrink shrink is basically going to cost you money there’s a lot of guys we’ve seen the trend going to mix flow dryers versus screen dryers because of the the test weight it’s test weight they say it’s gains but you don’t necessarily really necessarily gain test weight it’s just better test weight versus a the the same process going through a screen dryer. It’s just because of how it handles it better and it’s just more gentle in the in the process but when you’re taking out all that water you’re taking out weight you know it’s it’s you’re a pound of water weighs X amount and when you’re pulling that water out if you’re overdrying it you’re basically costing yourself money not only in the energy that it took to dry that product possibly risking more again more damage because you’re you’re cooking it and if you’re coming in at say 13 and a half and 14 you’ve taken out that test weight that now because you get you get paid on weight it’s weight and bushels but you’re ultimately getting paid on weight. So you want to have make sure that you have that you don’t want to have that overdried scenario you don’t want to have that underdried scenario. So it comes down to any operation it comes down to just good system management. Yeah. So got to think about energy consumption what happens to grain quality I mean these small losses become meaningful of course at commercial volume right absolutely even even on the commercial volume more so but even on you know a smaller farming operation you know you’re you’re talking the operations aren’t small anymore a hundred thousand bushels through a system is not you know that’s pretty common days so how should operators think about finding that sweet spot between
Natural Air Drying And ROI Decisions
Rodie Jelleberg 41:20
safe storage and unnecessarily giving away weight you know quality and energy so that’s where it comes down to just figuring out what works for your operation you know and and considering maybe some upgrades you know are you looking at you know if is your dryer not antiquated but is it is it to the point where you know making a change to something different you know if your dryer’s 20 years old or maybe it’s even 10 years old or going from a a screen dryer to a mix flow you know you kind of have to pencil it out and see you know the amount of bushels that I’m running through it every year. You know if it’s if a guy’s doing you know 50,000 bushels or 1000 bushels, your return on investment is going to take longer to pay off. When you start running half a million bushels to two and a half million bushels through a dryer system every year that’s where some of that stuff starts you know paying off dividends it starts paying off quicker. Bin managers have really come a long way especially even in the last five years a good bin management system you don’t have to know what’s going on in that entire bin I say that more for farm you know you started getting into those larger bins the 75 foot diameters 90 foot diameters the larger bins you really should have more than say one cable or one system you know something that’s gonna monitor zones but if you have the ability to use your bin manager it’s my personal opinion has always been let natural air drying do what it’s supposed to drop it sooner out of the dryer so that you don’t have that longer retention time and say drop it at 16% or 15 and a half and take that last half a point to point out just with natural air drying but again it comes down to you know how much room do you have in your system? Do you have this the storage capabilities? When are you marketing your green? Is it contracted are you going to be hauling it out in March? Are you going to be hauling it out in a month from harvest are you going to be hauling it out next July because if you have the time economically it makes more sense to save those pennies and just let the fans do their work but that’s not necessarily everybody’s capabilities and not everybody’s setup. And you just kind of have to look at it you know based on this many bushels you know and if I basically save, you know, save this test weight or gain this test weight over you know X amount of bushels. You just kind of have to sit down and put pen to paper and just kind of run some scenarios and see what what makes the most sense as far as what your return on investment is. You know the other thing too is is guys sometimes think that they need to use the dryer when they don’t. And I’m like I said I’m not going to tell anybody how to run their operation but there are times that I’ve seen that to me it seems silly to run it through the dryer when you have the ability to just take that point or point and a half, two points out just by dumping it in the bin. A lot of guys want to just run it through there just to just to make sure that it’s dry which is fine. It’s peace of mind is is worth something as well. But there’s other times too that um guys will try to get by without using a dryer and I’ve seen it where product is spoiled in the bin because they just can’t get it under control. We talked about in the in the webinar you know the the phantom yield loss is always your ideal moisture to cut to take it out of the field is between 21 and 23 has kind of been the old adage. And then you can’t the problem with with that is you can’t put that into a bin and dry it down with just dry aeration fans. It’s just there’s too much moisture there. It’ll spoil before it gets to that point. So it’s usually it’s that you can usually take two three maybe four points out if you’ve got great conditions you can do that in a bin just with your with your drying fans. When you put heat on there like a heater downstream heater yes your air potential your air has more potential now to hold water because you’re you have that temperature rise so a lot of guys will be like I’m just going to put a heater on there and then I can get a couple extra extra points worth of drying potential. Problem with that is is if you’re doing a high temp or a low temp heater on that dryer in between the fan and the and the bin you’re basically cooking the stuff that’s closest to the fan and you’re you know not getting any heating potential out of the stuff that’s farthest away so how do you combat that that’s just it’s a stir rater or a stirring system. Well now you’ve got more you lose bin capacity you’ve got more moving components uh you’ve got to risk breaking down augers they’re just stirring machines are just kind of there’s a lot of headache that goes in with a stirring machine but to do any good to have an in-bin or on bin heater you really have to have a stirring machine so that it comes down to are you running the bushels that you need to dry and is it one year? Is it just as is it one off or is it consistently most operations are not getting smaller. Most operations are getting bigger so it’s deciding whether it’s it’s time to make that jump to actually getting a dryer and then it’s not even just getting the dryer it’s making sure that you have the infrastructure to feed that dryer and take away from it and then have your storage. So there’s a lot of different factors that kind of go into that equation.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 47:31
Your experience is coming through great discussion I
How To Safely Gain More Capacity
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 47:35
I know this is really helping listeners so much. So we kind of put a frame around turning moisture management into an economic conversation about shrink energy quality and value let’s talk about throughput versus quality now let’s add harvest pressure trucks are coming in grain needs to move everybody would love more capacity suppose someone tells you Roadie I need another 10% out of this dryer before you change anything what questions do you ask before I even ask the questions one of the things I’m going to look at is to see is is this dryer even capable more capacity.
Rodie Jelleberg 48:19
A lot of times if it’s an if it’s if it’s already a customer that I’m experienced with that we’ve had that conversation about quality versus throughput if they’re in that mid-range then yeah it’s possible we could get more out of it. Then it goes back to the next the first question I’m gonna have is what does the product look like as far as what we go back to what’s our test weight. How well is it going to take the heat is it a normal year where we haven’t had issues with fires and what does the product look like coming out of the combine we go back to what kind of combine have they been running what does this stuff look like I’m actually before I’m gonna push it any harder than it is if especially if I’m on site I’m gonna go up and I’m gonna climb up the ladder on the dryer and I’m gonna look in those ducts to see if we’ve got any of that light form material floating in there. If we do I’m gonna basically say this is you know this is about what you can get out of it right now unless you do some changes to your equipment upstream this is about it. But if everything looks fine the product is clean coming in and we’re running at you know 180 degrees or 200 degrees and we’ve got a little bit of room to go I’m gonna say let’s just let’s let’s start slow we’re gonna about the only thing we really can do to get more capacity is temperature. So we’re gonna go up maybe even five degrees and we’re gonna see what that does. And we’re gonna run that for a day just to see how it compared to the previous day. And anytime we make a change like that as we start getting towards the upper end of what that dryer is capable of safely I’m gonna tell the customer because I would do the same thing if it was me running it is again we go back using your senses. Smell. Make sure that that smell hasn’t changed all of a sudden you start smelling something that that doesn’t smell quite right you can actually smell when it’s getting hot listen make sure that you’re make sure that everything still sounds the same make sure your fans still seem like they’re putting out the same amount of air you can tell typically when you’re not pushing enough air through that dryer you can just hear the the roar there’s it’s they’re not loud they’re not screamers but they’re you can just tell that they’re pushing a lot of that air you can just tell the difference in airflow. And then using you know using your eyes go up you know look at the look at the product that’s coming out take your samples we typically tell guys to be taking moisture samples to calibrate their moisture system at least once an hour every couple hours whatever it is as you’re doing that don’t just take it and dump it right in the moisture tester and then that’s all you do with it. Take a look at it take take a sample as you get time spread it on a light table or something that you can actually look at and make sure that you know you don’t have crack kernels that you don’t have a lot of FM you don’t have a lot of breakage going on there. So it’s it’s if you make a change no matter what that change is especially as you’re trying to push it you need to be more diligent and more cognizant of what’s going on with that system so that you don’t end up in a situation where you’re pushing it too far and if it’s the middle of harvest or the beginning of harvest or even after or at the end of the harvest you don’t want to have a dryer fire. But you know especially if it’s in the middle or the beginning of the season and you need to use that dryer you’re pushing it and you burn that thing up I mean it’s it’s not like you just go out and get a new one and you know unplug it and plug the new one in there’s a process there and then what do you do with with your wet product coming in because obviously you you’re if your wet bin is full now you got wet product that’s got to go somewhere so it’s and I always tell guys that you know the I know that harvest is stressful but you always got to try to be just a little bit patient and just make sure that you’re not panicked. Panicked is panic is bad.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 53:05
You’re managing risk it sounds very much like exactly yeah and and time of the season time of harvest where you are in that spectrum is also part of that management of risk. Which do you see more often operators who aren’t getting everything they could from their dryer or operators trying to get too much from it?
Rodie Jelleberg 53:25
Why I think for the uh the guys that have it’s probably about 50-50 and I don’t know that there’s necessarily you know I was gonna say guys that have had a dryer before or you know dryer for a long time it it it can just it depends on there there’s some guys that if they really want the the quality coming out they might be a little cautious and they might be you know I’m I’m gonna run 160 degrees you know because you said that 180 is is really good quality so I’m gonna run 160 degrees to get even better. Well there’s diminishing returns at a certain point you know you so if I go into and somebody’s running 160 degrees or 180 degrees and they’re taking out 10 points and there’s certain times it’s like you know we can we can push this well we can yeah let’s let’s crank up the temperature we got let’s go 20 degrees hotter this thing is gonna your system can handle it there’s other guys it it did there’s it depends on I think how they were how they were brought up into farming you know and what their what their family operation was like whether it was just go go go or whether it was we’re gonna try to get as much out of this as we can as economically as we can so it just I think it’s just there there’s multiple schools of thought there and I don’t know that
Hidden Energy Waste And Closing
Rodie Jelleberg 55:00
it’s necessarily one or the other.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 55:01
I see it both ways I love that thank you yeah there’s a lot of background that plays in decision making from those producers drying requires energy and during harvest that dryer can operate you know for a lot of ours where do you see facilities wasting energy without realizing they’re wasting it goes back to if you have the ability again guys that want to you know take out a half a point from like say fifteen and a half down to fifteen to me it’s it it’s it seems silly and some guys want to do it that way but it it’s it goes back to if it takes just as much energy to take that last point out and you could dump that into a bin and have it sit for a couple months and dry that last point out with natural air drying it’s that it’s the overdrying or drying when you don’t have to it’s that added cost that I think if a guy actually penciled it out you would see how much that’s costing you and you know let’s say just some quick fuzzy math my calculator if it costs three cents per bushel in added drying cost that we didn’t need and we’re doing that over say a hundred thousand bushels that’s three thousand three thousand dollars right there so it’s little things like that that you know that especially as input costs we talk about input costs and you know diesel fuel on the way back from Nebraska yesterday I saw there was one fuel station that was 637 a gallon for diesel.
Rodie Jelleberg 57:00
So when you start talking costs like that any anywhere that you can save those pennies is going to add up pretty quickly.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (Host) 57:10
I want to stop right there because what Rodie just said really captures something we’ve heard throughout this first conversation. Something changed what is it? Maybe it’s the grain maybe it’s the moisture maybe it’s the test weight maybe it’s temperature humidity maybe it’s airflow, gas pressure, equipment or something happening somewhere else in the system. Effective grain drying isn’t simply about knowing what setting to use it’s about understanding the relationships between all of those variables well enough to recognize when something has changed. And that’s exactly where we’re going next. This is the first of two special grain podcast episodes we’ve created with Rodi Jelleberg around grain drying. In episode two we’re going to move beyond optimizing the dryer and get even more practical. We’ll follow the grain beyond the dryer and into storage. We’ll talk about warning signs, dryer fires and maintenance we’ll look at what separates really good dryer operators from average ones. And we’re introducing a new segment Rodie what would you do? I’m going to give Rodie real world grain drying scenarios moisture jumps, bouncing numbers, increasing fuel consumption, hot grain, pressure to increase capacity, and ask him to talk us through what he would actually do. So don’t stop here, continue with episode two When Conditions change troubleshooting grain drying in the real world I’m Jim Lenz and this is the Whole Grain Podcast from GEAPS, the Grain Elevator and Processing Society
