Storing grain sorghum in airtight steel drums.
- Thread starter whitewing
- Start date
Kingfisher
Well-known member
I don't think that is going to work to good personally. I think its going to really stink when you open em back up. Especially if they go thru some heat cycles.whitewing":3d3u7t63 said:
Kingfisher":2wplrmpa said:
You could be right though it's how grain is often stored here for farm feed use. I'm thinking there could be some fermentation, but then that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Oh, forgot to mention, there's a pill that is added to each drum to make sure insect activity is brought to a halt.
TexasBred
Well-known member
Whitewing, although that grain sorghum looks bone dry it will still be 13% or even higher moisture. This in a closed environment will probably cause some spoilage if not complete ruin. Especially putting it up in hot weather.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
Wouldn't this not be like wrapping high moisture hay? If the barrels are airtight once the oxygen is used up it can't spoil.
Kingfisher
Well-known member
Well I didn't know we were going to think about this...........whitewing":3giv7iuc said:
In that case how many " air tight" drums are we talking about?I would rig up some sort of contraption to draw all the air / moisture content down to something acceptable that would insure no or less of a loss of the feed. Kind of like evacuating an A/C system before a recharge. Question I have would be how much benefit is " dry" millet?
Kingfisher":39tfl9gj said:Well I didn't know we were going to think about this...........whitewing":39tfl9gj said:
I would rig up some sort of contraption to draw all the air / moisture content down to something acceptable that would insure no or less of a loss of the feed. Kind of like evacuating an A/C system before a recharge. Question I have would be how much benefit is " dry" millet?
We're talking about 30,000 kilos of grain sorghum, each drum holding 175 kilos+ so something on the order of 170 drums. The clean drums, black in color, are first placed in the sun for a couple of hours to heat them up, and then filled to capacity with the grain. They're then sealed tightly and moved to a cool, covered shed with concrete walls and stored there until needed.
As for the benefit of the sorghum, it's later ground, mixed with other feeds and fed to my free-range hogs as a supplement to their diets.
Kingfisher
Well-known member
I guess if you have the drums and the available labor.........why not just build a silo? I saw your concrete area that you store the drums in an earlier post. I figured you were just going to store it in the concrete bunkers loose.......where did you get the drums? Didn't they do it that way in order to transport it somewhere easier?
Kingfisher":14owga92 said:
KF, the silo you saw in that other thread is to store green pasture and the plant material from corn and sorghum left over after the grain is harvested, not the grain itself. We're talking about two entirely separate feed projects here. These drums will be stored in a covered shed with concrete walls, not in a silo.
I buy the drums locally. They originally come with solvents used in the local oil industry and are sold to the aftermarket once the solvents have been used.
Just curious if you've sealed one up for a couple of weeks then opened it? I know it can be awfully hard to get some odors out of barrles. We have one that had pickled garlix shipped in it. We've had it 5 years and have tried everything and any feed we put in it the cows won;t eat because of the stink. That's after a year of being left open and outside and 6 months half full of charcoal and sealed up.
dun":1vomfh6d said:
I haven't done any tests on the palatability of the stored products yet. The information I'm passing along is based on what other's here typically have done for longterm storage of both corn and sorghum for animal feeds.
We've washed the drums with gasoline and detergent and honestly, I can't smell a thing even with my nose stuck in the barrels. :?
TexasBred
Well-known member
Already got the barrels. Seems you've got your mind made up. Hope it works. Bring us up to date in a few months.
novaman
Well-known member
Ever considered putting up a grain bin of some sort?
novaman":4u0j4p3u said:
Of course. But just so you can get an appreciation for where I am with this place, I got started in January of 2007. I'm working with just under 1000 acres that basically had NOTHING when I bought it. That implies the need to clear land, build fences, plant pasture, build farm ponds, install an irrigation system, build corrals and handling facilities for 250 head of cattle, build a 40 acre hogpen for free-range hogs, etc etc etc.
I figure one of these days soon I'll get around to installing a grain bin of some sort. Right now, I'm tired.
novaman
Well-known member
I figured there would be a good reason but it never hurts to ask. Around here I could pick up an old corrugated steel bin for pretty cheap as everybody is moving to hopper bottoms. I suppose around there grain bins are not as common of an item.
novaman":34m9rvq9 said:
I actually saw a bin laying on its side at a place not too far from mine and figured I'd ask the property owner what shape it's in and if he'd be interested in selling it. It's a setup like the one pictured below though obviously not in this condition. Would something like this work well for sorghum storage? I'd say it'd be about 20 feet high and 6 or 8 feet across.
Kingfisher
Well-known member
Your doing an awesome job from what I see! How did you get there ? Where are you from originally? Thanks in advance. You need any more help?whitewing":3s9021eb said:novaman":3s9021eb said:
Of course. But just so you can get an appreciation for where I am with this place, I got started in January of 2007. I'm working with just under 1000 acres that basically had NOTHING when I bought it. That implies the need to clear land, build fences, plant pasture, build farm ponds, install an irrigation system, build corrals and handling facilities for 250 head of cattle, build a 40 acre hogpen for free-range hogs, etc etc etc.
I figure one of these days soon I'll get around to installing a grain bin of some sort. Right now, I'm tired.
