Facility Feature
FS Grain Adds Grain Dryer, 1 Million Bushels in Two New Tanks

When FS Grain Inc. acquired a small grain elevator from Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) about five miles west of Amboy, IL (815-857-2058), in 2018, the number one item on FS Grain’s wish list was a grain dryer.

The former ADM elevator consisted of a single Chief Titan 500,000-bushel corrugated steel tank and an adjacent 500,000-bushel temporary storage pad but no dryer.

“We were looking to provide drying service to our customer base at Amboy,” says Brian Hettel, operations manager for FS Grain, who has been with the GROWMARK-affiliated company since 2015 and the grain industry since 2001, “We were going elsewhere to dry grain, and that meant we were trucking all that water along with the grain. But once we had all that dry grain, we needed someplace to store it until it was time to move it.”

So in addition to a GSI Zimmerman tower dryer rated at 4,700 bph at five points of moisture removal, FS Grain also added two GSI corrugated steel tanks holding a total of about 1 million bushels. The larger dry tank holds 750,000 bushels, and the new wet tank holds approximately 315,000 bushels.

To build the $5.2 million dryer, storage, and handling upgrade, FS Grain named GROWMARK Commercial Construction, Bloomington, IL (309-557-6334), as general contractor and millwright.

“We have used GROWMARK on several projects in the past, and we’ve been pleased with their performance,” Hettel says.

Construction began in November 2020, in order to get the new storage ready to receive grain in August 2021. “We still have a little electrical work to do, but it should be done by harvest,” Hettel adds.

GSI Steel Dry Storage, Wet Tanks Added

LoweCon LLC, Crawfordsville, IN (765-866-8231), erected both of the new tanks at Amboy.

The 750,000-bushel GSI dry tank stands 105 feet in diameter, 91 feet tall at the eave, and 119 feet tall at the peak.

It is outfitted with outside stiffeners, flat concrete floor, sidedraw spout, wraparound staircase, Daay bin paddle sweep, and a 24-cable Rolfes@Boone grain temperature monitoring system.

A set of four Chicago Blower 60-hp centrifugal fans provide 1/7 cfm per bushel of aeration through in-floor ducting.

The GSI 315,000-bushel wet tank stands 72 feet in diameter, 85 feet tall at the eave, and 104 feet tall at the peak.

Like its larger counterpart, the wet tank has outside stiffeners, flat concrete floor, Daay bin paddle sweep, a nine-cable Rolfes@Boone grain temperature monitoring system, and wraparound staircase.

A pair of Chicago Blower 30-hp centrifugal fans provide 1/7 cfm per bushel of aeration.

In addition to the temperature monitoring cables, the new tanks are outfitted with a Centaur Analytics grain quality monitoring system. Unlike a cable system, which monitors grain temperature for a certain radius around each cable, the Centaur system digitally monitors every bushel in the tank for temperature, moisture, carbon dioxide (CO2), and other quality factors.

Receiving leg enclosed with APEX Industrial support tower

The facility’s office and grain lab are located in a small trailer on the north side of the elevator.

Incoming grain trucks pull onto an inbound/outbound Rice Lake 90-foot pitless truck scale and are sampled with a Gamet truck probe. Samples are tested for moisture with a Perten moisture meter. At this point, scale operations are not automated, though they may become automated in the future.

Drivers then proceed to an enclosed 1,000-bushel mechanical receiving pit to deposit grain. The pit feeds a GSI InterSystems 15,000-bph leg outfitted with Maxi-Lift 16x8 heavy-duty buckets mounted on an 18-inch belt.

The leg is enclosed in an APEX Industrial support tower with a 16-foot-x-16-foot footprint. The tower stands 180 feet tall and has a switchback staircase.

At the top, grain is deposited into a five-duct GSI InterSystems rotary distributor. From there, a set of GSI 30,000-bph enclosed belt conveyors carry grain out to storage.

Tanks empty onto GSI 15,000-bph drag conveyors in above-ground tunnels, which carry grain back to the receiving leg. Trucks are loaded through the sidedraws or through a Schuld Bushnell surge tank mounted atop the receiving shed.

Crews installed a new GSI Zimmerman 4,700-bph tower dryer adjacent to the receiving leg and wet tank. The dryer will be fired with propane from a nearby 30,000-gallon tank but has not yet been used. The dryer is serviced by GSI 30,000-bph wet and dry legs.

Ed Zdrojewski, editor

From September/October 2021 Grain Journal

FS Grain LLC

• Morris, IL • 815-705-0900
• Founded: 2015
• Storage capacity: 50 million bushels at 21 locations
• Annual volume: 80 million bushels
• Number of employees: 80
• Crops handled: Corn, soybeans
• Services: Grain handling and merchandising

Key personnel at Amboy:

• Cory Winstead, general manager
• Brian Hettel, operations manager
• Keith Zinke, location manager
• Tyler Richards, outside operations

Amboy Supplier List

• Aeration fans • Chicago Blower
• Bearing sensors • 4B Components Ltd.
• Bin sweeps • Sioux Steel Co.
• Bucket elevators • GSI
• Catwalks • APEX Industrial Co.
• Concrete foundations • Craig’s Concrete
• Contractor • GROWMARK Commercial Construction
• Conveyors • GSI
• Electrical contractor • AES Electrical, Inc.
• Elevator buckets • Maxi-Lift Inc.
• Engineering • SKS Engineers, LLC
• Grain dryer • GSI Zimmerman
• Grain monitoring system • Centaur Analytics
• Grain temperature system • Rolfes@Boone
• Millwright • GROWMARK Commercial Construction
• Motion sensors • 4B Components Ltd.
• Motors • Baldor
• Speed reducers • Dodge
• Spouts • Premier Components, Inc.
• Steel storage • GSI
• Steel tank erector • LoweCon LLC
• Tower support system • APEX industrial Co.
• Truck probe • Gamet Mfg. Inc.
• Truck scale • Rice Lake Weighing Systems