How much grain does a drum hold?
 

I have several plastic barrels and metal drums, probably about 50 gallons each. I want to fill them with a mixture of whole grains (for chicken food).

Approximately how many pounds of grain will each one hold?

I gonna guess 350 lbs of corn. Oats only weighs about half as much for the same volume. Whats the prize for the closest guess? LOL <> UNK

I was thinking 250 pound of corn would fit a 55 gal metal drum.

1 bushel = 9.309178 gallons.
55 gallon drum would hold about 6 bushel.............I think;)

Oh
Corn weighs about 56 pounds per bushel so 6 bushel would weigh about 336 pounds

The chart on this site shows pounds of grain per cubit foot, about ¼ of the way down the page. http://extension.missouri.edu/xplor/...ops/g04020.htm

Simply figure the cubic feet capacity of the barrel and you have how much it will hold.

I went googling and found these:

55 gal = 250# corn
30 gal = 150# corn
http://longsupply.com/magnum/magnum_...g_products.htm

55 gal = 350# wheat
55 gal = 300# corn
http://www.endtimesreport.com/water_for_chickens.html

Two 5 gallon buckets will hold about 75 lbs. of wheat, rice or other grains.
http://www.familyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/
That calculates to around 375# for 50 gal

I suppose I could count on at least 250# per barrel. :shrug:

That's gotta be pretty close, based on how many 50# bags of feed we can dump into a 55 gal. drum.

I saw the thread title and was going to ask snare drum or base drum... or maybe a bongo.

I'm not going to be dumping bags in. Otherwise it would be easy to figure it out. I'm going to be mixing the grain first.

But, I DO dump bags in, so was just sayin'... I get about 5 50# bags, so the est. was probably about right. :shrug:

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. :doh:

We emptied 50# bags of grain into 55-gallon steel drums for winter storage. Each with a cup of dessicant inside.

Barley and oats we were able to get 4 bags of grain in with room for the dessicant before sealing them.

Corn we got 6 bags in each drum.

We store each grain seperately. Then each week I mix up so much chicken feed, goat/sheep/hog sweet feed and we still have the grains available for us.

ET- What kind of dessicant do you use? BTW, I can tell you that one 7.5 foot diameter pool liner will hold 1298# of grain, just in case anyone was wondering...

A 55 gallon drum holds 7 bushels as so all old timers say. I have always paid for 7 bushels of corn when putting it in 55 gallon metal drums. Everybody has always held to this, (they are all old timers), so I trust that if about right.

Well I did some research:

I found that you can buy a silica desiccant that is all white.

Or you can get one that is 100% blue turning, meaning that 100% of the particles will be white normally, but turn blue when they are 'dry'.

Or you can get one that is 100% pink turning, meaning that 100% of the particles will be white normally, but turn pink when they are 'saturated' with moisture.

Either of the 100% varieties are more expensive than the plain white kinds.

Then I found that I could get one that is 10% blue and 10% pink, and 80% white.

So I bought 5 pounds of it. 10% / 10% / 80%.

When I first opened the desiccant it had specks of blue in it.

At first I poured a cup into a sippy cup, placed seated into the grains and I sealed each barrel.

Then a week later [the second week], I went through, opened each barrel and inspected the desiccant. They each had specks of pink in them. So I replaced the desiccant in each barrel with fresh. I poured all of the used desiccant into a shallow bread pan and I baked it at 350* for 4 hours.

The used desiccant all turned back to having specks of blue.

A week later [the third week], we re-inspected each barrel. But the desiccant was all white. Meaning not totally dry but not saturated either.

Another week [the fourth week], and they were pink. So we replaced the desiccant again.

I figure that as it takes longer and longer for the desiccant to become saturated, the grain inside each barrel must be dropping to lower and lower moisture contents each time.

Now as we need a new barrel of grain and unseal the barrel and I check the colour of the desiccant. So far they have still been blue. So I figure that no more moisture is leaving the grains.



I really like this kind of desiccant. It is re-usable, with no apparent limit to it's life.

And it provides a method for me to see when it has finished it's job.



Also we found that to get a good seal with the drums we first line the drums each with a huge hefty bag. I think that the plastic gives a gasket effect when you tighten the drum ring.

Without a gasket in place we have seen that they are not 'sealed'.

7? thats a bit much around here 6 is the figure ,LOL like cornhusker all ya have to do is the math.

I don't know about the math, never worked it out, but I keep 4 kinds of grain in 55 gallon drums with "clamp-on" lids in my shed. (corn, peas, milo, and wheat) It always seems to work out to 6. I buy my grain in the fall from local farmers (except for the peas), I have never had insect problems with it as long as it was outside. (It gets cold within a few weeks of my getting the grain, I think it must kill them) I left a barrel of milo in my (heated) garage one winter, when it opened it in the spring it was all wevils and dust :(

After I read firegirl969's post, I went to google and looked it up. Sure enough, there are 6 bushels to a 55 gallon barrel.

That makes it easy now to do the math and figure up how much grain will fit in one. :bouncy:

Yeah HJ......

That's what I was thinkin' too.... 'Cept I fergot about the Bongos though..... Here lady cat wants ta know how much a plastic drum....


Or a steel drum holds.....


I was gonna hafta answer with..... Wait fer it..... Beats me.... ;)

Whether its mash, scratch grains, whole corn, or whole oats I can get can roughly 350 pounds of any of them into a typical fifty five gallon plastic drum with a screw off lid. Maybe up to 375 with a bit of shaking, but I prefer to go in 50lb bag increment.

As for how to go about storing stuff in the drums take a look at these threads:

http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=81529

http://homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=207195

You really want the grains to be at proper moisture content before you put it in the drum because it's going to be difficult to lower it significantly with any practical amount of desiccant. The Damp Rid stuff is easy to use if you won't be moving the drums a lot. Considering how heavy they are once filled chances are you won't be moving them much once they are.

.....Alan.

I noticed that the barley and oats were roughly the same volume of grain per 50 pounds. But shifting to corn, 50 pounds takes up much less volume.

Again I do not know what the moisture content is with our grains.

I know that before storage, the grains were to moist for our mill to grind them nice to powder, it would gunk up the grist mill. Whereas after a few cycles of drying with desiccant the grains are dry enough that they do feed through the grist mill nicely.

Again I would only recommend the desiccant that changes colour, so you know when it has become saturated and is ready to be changed out.

:)