The highest Quality Grain and Heaviest Test Weight To Ever Come From a Dryer!

Seed Drying Dynamics

To minimize stress while drying you must treat each seed equally and allow the proper retention time.

Seed Temperature

Seed temperature is critical to producing a quality product. Overheating a seed will cause damage. European lab studies show 150°F (65°C) is the temperature where and individual seed's quality begins to deteriorate. Other grain authorities, however, have established critical temperatures far lower than that. The reason: most dryers, by nature of their design, treat their seeds unevenly, severely damaging some in their attempt to achieve a dry product with a reasonable capacity.

Retention Time

A seed dries as moisture evaporates from its surface. While this happens, water migrates from the seed's core to the surface, becoming available for further evaporation. Heat and airflow is used to speed up this process. At first, the seed is cooled by evaporative cooling, but as the rate of moisture migration is outpaced by the energy available, heat begins to transfer into the seed's core. If the transfer of heat becomes critical, internal expansion caused by the heat combined with surface shrink caused by the moisture removal eventually creates surface cracks, dropping quality as well as establishing areas for disease and molds. Popcorn or puffed-wheat is produced using this process to an extreme.

Mixed-Flow Dryers

Three important factors occur as a seed moves from top to bottom in an Excel Crop Dryer.

1. Seeds are gently mixed and stirred as they flow over the ducts smoothing the front to back variations within the machine.

2. Seeds pass through alternating horizontal heat zones removing surface moisture in hotter zones while allowing time for moisture in cooler zones.

3. Seeds pass through alternation regions of air patterns, switching drying characteristics as each concurrent and counter flow region is encountered.

The combination of these factors guarantee that each seed is treated gently, equally and properly handled without stress or damage. This translates to the highest possible quality on the widest variety of products.

Cross-flow (screen) dryers by nature of design do not treat all seeds equally. Critical temperature on some seeds is exceeded as need for capacity with small retention time requires high heat. The result is crackage and overall quality reduction. Some crops simply cannot tolerate this style of drying, limiting the flexibility of this type of machine.

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