Siemer Milling Doubles Storage at West Harrison, IN, Flour Mill With Two Corrugated Steel Tanks
Siemer Milling Co.’s newest flour mill in West Harrison, IN has been in operation since 2015, but even then, the company’s management had anticipated that someday the mill would need more wheat storage.
The concrete pad supporting the 2015 flour mill and elevator included space to build more storage.
That day came in 2020, when Siemer Milling aded 1.2 million bushels of upright corrugated steel storage, bringing the total at the site to 2.2 million bushels.
According to Plant Manager Sunil Maheshwari, “We have been anticipating the time when this investment became a priority, and in 2019 we put it in the budget and completed it just in time for the 2020 harvest in June.”
The West Harrison mill produces 10,000 cwts. of flour per day. Most of the flour is made from regionally grown soft red winter wheat.
Steel Storage Addition Includes Two Brock Tanks
G.C. Unverfehrt Farm Supply, Centralia, IL (618-493-7357), was the contractor on the project. It constructed a pair of Brock Grain Systems 600,000-bushel tanks. They stand 90 feet in diameter, 106 feet 8 inches tall at the eaves, and 131 feet tall at the peaks.
When the original flour mill was built in 2015, a total of 80,000 cubic yards of concrete was poured to raise the entire site at West Harrison out of the Whitewater River flood plain. In addition, Siemer Milling anticipated adding more storage at some point down the line.
The site for the new grain storage required additional support for the weight of the new tanks. Crews installed more than 300 crushed rock Geopiers 25 to 30 feet deep to provide that support.
The tanks have flat concrete floors, outside stiffeners, 22-cable Tri-States Grain Conditioning grain temperature monitoring systems, and rotary switch-type level indicators. One of the two tanks has a wraparound staircase for easy access to the roof and overhead conveyor truss.
A set of four Chicago Blower 60-hp centrifugal fans provide 1/7 cfm per bushel of aeration with the assistance of four roof exhausters.
A set of Brock 20,000-bph drag conveyors carry wheat out to the new storage from the existing slipform concrete workhouse. The tanks empty onto an above-ground Brock 10,000-bph reclaim drag running back to existing grain-handling equipment. The reclaim conveyor is housed in a 6-foot-x-6-foot tunnel.
Ed Zdrojewski, senior editor
From Second Quarter 2021 MILLING JOURNAL