Drying wet bagged rice coal

Anyone have any advice on a method to drying bagged rice coal before loading into hopper. I have encountered feed problems this year due to
the coal being so wet. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

You obviously need an area that you can quickly and easily return the dried coal to a transport bucket, or whatever you load with. It will need to be able to be kept warm, and need a place to collect water from the damp coal. If you want to use a 4 by 4 area, that handles 200 lbs well, or a full 4 by 8 area will do double that amount. You will have trouble with screening to hold that much weight and if you can get by with just an exposure time , then you are good to go. Out of the bags is the best solution, and into a heated space. Many bagged guys simply bring a supply in near the boiler or furnace, however that isn't cool if you are doing it in the living room. Get it into a heated area, open the top of the bags, spread it out if necessary.
Try to keep a few days ahead and you will have no issue.

Buy a plastic muck tub, cut some holes in the bottom and lay some plastic screen in the bottom, set it on a couple of bricks with a plastic mortar mixing tub under that. it will hold almost 3 bags of rice and will drain\dry out quickly.

Bk

bksaun wrote:Buy a plastic muck tub, cut some holes in the bottom and lay some plastic screen in the bottom, set it on a couple of bricks with a plastic mortar mixing tub under that. it will hold almost 3 bags of rice and will drain\dry out quickly.

Bk

Yep, this will work but be aware that that black juice will stain anything it touches. It's permanent and you'd make a million bucks if you could market it in a pen some how. Lisa

Your right Lisa, thats why the plastic mortar tub is under the muck tub, to catch all that, If I have time Ill try to attatch a picture.

Bk

If you can, switch to a supplier who uses the "burlap" type bags- they drain better and you get drier coal. We bought coal in 40lb plastic bags last year (slightly easier for me to handle than the 50's), and it was sopping. Put the fire right out once... I'm buying the 50's in burlap this year (it's not *real* burlap, it's some sort of plastic weave), and my fire issues haven't had anything to do with the coal.

I've had people tell me they sprinkle water onto their coal for dust control and they say it burns better a little wet. Are they crazy?

damp definitely keeps down the dust and burns fine, i wouldn't say better. sopping wet will cause feed problems in my stoker.

I predrill 1/4 inch holes in the bottom and sides of used plastic storage drums, I would say they are either 30 or 40 gallon used chemical barrels that my job was throwing away, I use a sawz all and cut the tops off of so I can easily dump 40 to 50 lb bags of coal into. I also have a couple plastic garbage cans that I've drilled the holes and I usually let the drums of newly placed coal sit outside on my black asphalt driveway a day or 2 to let the juices flow before moving indoors this is successful for me and I have a rotation of about 9 drums.