Grain Drying Cost Calculator

Boiling off a pound of water in a perfectly efficient system takes roughly 1,000 BTU, but real grain dryers lose heat to exhaust air, the grain itself, and the surrounding structure, so actual fuel consumption per pound of water removed runs meaningfully higher. The 2,200 BTU figure used here already reflects that typical real-world inefficiency rather than the theoretical minimum.

The calculator returns zero for every output in that case, since drying by definition only removes water and can't raise moisture — there's no meaningful cost or water-removal figure for a target that isn't actually lower than the starting point. Double-check your two moisture entries if you see an all-zero result.

Each grain type has a different standard test weight per bushel — corn at 56 pounds versus soybeans and wheat at 60 — so the same percentage-point moisture difference translates into a different absolute weight of water removed per bushel. A heavier test weight bushel contains more total water at the same moisture percentage, which raises the drying cost per bushel.

They're related but calculated differently: shrink percentage measures the percentage of total weight lost purely from moisture removal, using the standard elevator shrink formula based on the moisture percentages, while water removed per bushel is a weight figure derived from the dry-matter method used to size the drying cost. Both describe the same physical process from slightly different angles.

Total drying cost scales directly with the entered price per million BTU, so the fuel source and local pricing matter as much as the physical drying job itself. Since natural gas and propane prices can differ by roughly double depending on region and fuel choice, two operations processing the same grain at the same moisture drop can see meaningfully different total costs purely from their local energy pricing.