Dry Beans Re-Visited

Thought I'd put up this picture of a combine working dry beans. Notice all the dirt that goes thru these machines? Very tough on bearings. :>(

Normally the combine doesn't follow the cutter like this, but rather, 12 or 16 rows are windrowed together into one large windrow. By windrowing, more of the dirt is shaken out of the vines and shattering at the combine pickup is lessened.

But sometimes, the weather doesn't wanna cooperate and the wind wants to blow. When this happens, the wind can literally "blow you out of business". So, ya leave 'em anchored to the ground til you can get 'em in the bin.

Have a good 'un,

Allan

I have been trying to grow some dry beans to sell in the winter and have had a heck of a time combining them without smashing them to bits. I'm thinking if there weren't as many bad and broken beans, I could charge more....

Greg

Rubber inside the "U" of the concave. Had an old Allis 60 that had rubbber coated cylinder bars too.

Allan

I always had a soft spot in my heart for those old Gleaners with the front end cylinders.

Especially in beans, because if you lost a bearing, you could just walk up to 'em and change 'em from the outside of the machine.

Always figured that a wheat machine with a million acres was about the same as a bean machine with 100 acres of beans run thru it. :>)

Pretty sure that the rubber cushioned stuff just didn't go over that well, did it?

Allan

Those speciality combines are only used in heavy weed and nightshade infected fields that I know of and not as a general rule. Weeds, and especially Nightshade do not mix with the harvest of edible beans.

If you are getting splits and dirt, then you don't have the combine set up right. When the beans come out of the machine, they should be clean as a whistle and with only about a 1% or less tare. They should be almost as clean as they are when you buy 'em off the grocery shelf.

As you know, during the heat of the day, the beans will shell by just barely "bumping" the little critters. So, this means that all the actual threshing takes place at that very first concave bar. Everything from that point to the truck is concentrated on getting the crop clean.

Therefore, the cylinder has to be slowed way down; to about 175 rpm and the clearance opened up from what you would normally combine other crops at. I always ran it at about 1 5/8”.

Also, when combining beans, you put special sieves on both of the elevators, the unloading auger and you swap the clean grain pan in the shoe for a perforated pan insert.

Next, you have to get that air turned up a little. All this has to be done to let the dirt and cracks dump back out on the ground.

Last trick of the trade is to keep that machine full; don’t putz around with it, load ‘er up and make it snort. The volume of crop fed in cushions the harshness of the threshing process.

If you are using a rotary machine, all bets are off, ‘cause I’ve never owned one. :>(

Hope this helps,

Allan

Take out every other concave bar. Three is all you need for beans because they shell so darned easy.

Allan

Thanks for the info. Seems like the more I learn, the less I know.

Were you using spike tooth bars on the cylinder ?

The spiked teeth on those cylinders are to tear up those woodlike sunflowers and the like.

It just doesn't take much to shell a bean pod. It is all the stuff that is run in with 'em that starts choking down a combine. :>)

Allan

Yep, that's how we used to do it here too and it was my first lesson in sleep depravation.

You started the cutting and raking at about 1am (or whenever the dew came down) and went until 8 or 9am when the vines started getting fragile.

Grabbed a little sleep until noon and combined all afternoon until the trucks were full. Then hauled the silly things 100 miles to the beanery and got home at midnight. Fueled up, greased the machinery and started all over again.

And all the while, hoping beyond hope that the wind wouldn’t come up. Cut beans, when raked, were just like dollar bills laying on a lawn; just a little bitty wind and they would be gone; shelling out on the ground as they rolled.

Last step in the process is to rough the resultant open ground perpendicular to the prevailing winds. Failing to do so in this country leaves you without topsoil over winter.

Allan

Not to be a wiseguy or anything, but that is "deprivation" based on the word "deprived" and not "depravation" which would be based on the word "depraved". Nobody wants to go around calling you depraved, that would be definition of character. :-)

You're right, I got mixed up. I didn't get enough sleep in the past few nights. :>)

Allan

We farmed south of Midland and north of Hemlock (Michigan). One year the navy beans were pulled and raked and ready for the combine (it was actually coming down the road) when the sky turned black and the wind came on strong and blew all of the windrows into a large field of soybeans. The next day the combine was parked next to the soybean field and the beans were forked by hand into the header of the combine. That experience as a youth was one of the reasons I decided to do something other than farm.

JYD

Your e-mail is hidden. The family farm (Wegner) was on Sasse Road between Kent Road and Laporte Road. I visit the area on occasion. Usually stop and visit with Bob T.

JYD

Alan did they use any of the Lillston peanut machines out there for dry beans. They used to be quite popular here as they were real gentle on the beans. They aren't used much now because they don't have enough capacity.

Dry edibles. Navy beans. Soup beans. :>)

Allan

casey