# re-cleaning grain through a combine



## moserfam6 (Jun 29, 2011)

I run the risk of sounding totally stupid but . . . 
We just bought 9 tons of triticale from a farmer that was just bin run, to sprout in our fodder system. (It was half the price that we'd been paying for barley.) The grain is not clean enough and it is causing a lot of mold growth. 

We have a JD 4400 combine that we bought to try our hand at growing a little bit of grain for ourselves. But we don't have much experience with it yet. My husband has more than I do, but I thought I'd go ahead and throw this question up and see what people thought.

Can I just dump 5 gallon buckets of the triticale into the combine somehow to have it clean the seeds better? Or does anyone have a better idea for cleaning it?

We grow 24 large trays of fodder per day, so we wash 5 1/2 5gallon buckets worth of grain a day. We are skimming off chaff and using a ton of water to try and get it all cleaner, and using bleach, etc., but it's not sufficient. 
I'm thinking if we just cleaned a few tons at a time through the combine, it might help. But I wasn't sure if that was even possible.
Thoughts?
Rachel


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

You need to find an old seed cleaner and run it through that. Not real expensive and you would have it for when you do combine your own. Another way is to set up a fan and winnow it, blowing off the trash. You do not want to rerun seed through the cylinder and concave of the combine, tough on viable seed that you want to sprout. I don't know of a way to get seed into a combine, behind the cylinder, so it is evenly spread out so the combine can reclean the seed....James


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

What you need is a fanning mill. many a farm stead used them from the early 1900's to the late 50's. 
A few who worry about the seed sold today still use them. Our farm had one we used till the mid 1960's when dad retired fromn farming.

Made up of a simple screen, a fan and slatted canvas, *fanning* *mills* turned threshed grain into clean grain.


















 Al


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

Yes one can do it, with a combine, 

The best way to add the grain is up on top through the trap door above the straw walkers, 
the combine will not remove the fines unless they are fan able, but they can be screened out, by after cleaning making a chute with a screen of a size that is smaller than the seed you have, 

I have cleaned seed of chaff and straw by doing what your suggesting, by dumping in the top trap door, you are not running it through the cylinder again and thus cracking it or damaging it is not as great, 

JD does make a clean grain door (bottom of the elevator) on the elevator with holes in for removing fines, out of the clean grain, that could work I instead of the screen chute for the fines.

(as in the drawing in the above post, the combine will do the fanning and the same as the top screen, but not the bottom screen, so small weeds seeds, dirt and other small stuff will still be in the sample unless one uses a screen chute or elevator screen, (I know the elevator screen works for corn, but not sure on small grains),

If I was to set up to do this, I would auger into the top of the combine, and hook a chute on to the bin auger to screen the final small stuff out, 


NO this is not as good as a seed cleaner,

(the two screen in the combine, the top one is to screen the major chaff and straw off, the one under the top is to separate the usable stuff and the grain that still is in the hull of the plant or what ever and it dump it in to the return that runs it through the cylinder again for rethreshing, if dirt or small seeds are present they go in to the clean grain),


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

I have on setting here like alleyopper has pictured, not nearly as shiny, and well used that I would part with. They will make bin run grain cleaner.

Fines and dust can be cleaned by pouring over 1/8" hail screen, 1/4" hail screen will take some bigger stuff out. A fan can be used to winnow chaff and straw out like some one has already mentioned.


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

poste a picture JD combine, there is a trap door behind the grain bin, put grain there to be re cleaned, it will drop down o the straw walkers, and then taken down by the augers, to the fanning unit below, 
through the screen and fanned, and back up in to the grain tank/bin.


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

I would think if it is all ready harvested then it has made a trip through a combine and another one won't accomplish much.
A fanning mill would be nice.


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## DaleK (Sep 23, 2004)

You can put it through. It may or not make it any cleaner, like Sammy says, if the other farmer had his combine set reasonably well you probably can't clean it any more than it is with another combine, if he didn't you should be able to set your combine with more air, etc. and clean it better.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

IF you can spread it out across the cleaning shoe of the combine I am sure you could clean it up some. But spreading it out across the cleaning area would be tough. If "piled" up it does not clean well at all. Also a combine is made to have a steady feed of material to control the air and to "float" the seed along the shoe to get as much area involved in the cleaning process. A seed cleaner or fanning mill cleans the seed but also has screens to separate different sized seeds or trash....James


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## AtomicFarmer (Sep 16, 2012)

Last year we bought an IH 82 pull type combine because our IH 715 self propelled combine pretty much gave it up. We weren't just sure we had it set up right and I was in a hurry and so I cut a whole bin full of oats with the fan not open enough. The whole bin was full of damp weeds. We offloaded into a gravity box and set the combine up beside the wagon, pulled the reel drive belt off the combine head so the reel wouldn't turn, and I shoveled the grain right into the combine's throat. It came out clean as a whistle. It was kind of wasteful (fuel, time, and spilled grain) but it worked and saved the grain that would have molded from the damp stuff in with it.

I don't remember seeing any damaged grain, but we sell oats for feed, not seed, so I have no idea what it would be like for seed.

It's dangerous, costly, and wasteful (I hate rework) but yes, a combine can reclean grain.


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## farmerDale (Jan 8, 2011)

Before one familiar with combines can really tell you how well it may or may not work, we need to know, IMO, what is "dirty" about the triticale? Is it chaffy? Weeds seeds? Small stuff? Bits of straw? A combine can do some separation, but it depends on what is there for a sample to begin with. Depending on what the foreign material is, a combine may sort of clean it up. 

Number two, what do you mean by causing mold issues? Usually mold is caused by grain too damp. Sometimes grain too damp, and moldy grain, will have a lower germination rate, poor palatability, etc. I think if you got the triticale for half price of barley, there could well be a good reason for that, and the farmer you got it from knows the reason all too well... Normally, one would not sell triticale at a discount to barley.

Is it a weedy, chaffy mess? Importantly, is it even dry?


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