Enter what you delivered, the moisture it was measured at and the moisture it is settled at. You get the weight after drying, how much of the load was water, the shrink as a percentage and the kilograms lost per tonne. Useful for checking a silo ticket or deciding whether to dry at home or sell wet.
What the scale showed at delivery.
From the moisture meter reading.
The moisture your contract pays at — often 14% for maize.
Enter the delivered weight and both moisture readings.
How it works
Only water leaves during drying, so the dry matter is constant. That gives one relation: mass after = mass before × (100 − moisture before) ÷ (100 − moisture after). Ten tonnes of maize at 24% moisture settled to 14% is 10,000 × 76 ÷ 86 = 8,837 kg, and the missing 1,163 kg is water.
The shrink percentage follows from the moisture figures alone: (24 − 14) ÷ (100 − 14) = 11.63%, which is 116.28 kg per delivered tonne. This is why buyers quote shrink per moisture point rather than per load — the percentage depends only on the two readings, not on the size of the lot.
The tool models pure water loss. Real settlements often add a separate handling or drying charge, and a moisture meter reading depends on the sample and the instrument, so a ticket may differ slightly. Enter weight in kilograms or tonnes; results are shown in kilograms with the dry matter listed so you can see what stays constant.
Practical examples
Ten tonnes of maize at harvest moisture
Delivered at 24% and settled at 14%: 8,837.21 kg remain, 1,162.79 kg was water, and the shrink is 11.63% — 116.28 kg per tonne delivered.
Wheat that needs a small correction
Six tonnes at 15% settled to 13% leaves 5,862.07 kg. The shrink is only 2.3%, about 23 kg per tonne, which is typical for a cereal harvested in a dry spell.
Sunflower dried to storage moisture
Four tonnes at 14% dried to 9% shrinks by 5.5% — oil crops are stored drier than cereals, so the percentage looks large for a small moisture gap.
Nothing to remove
If the load arrives already at the settlement moisture, the shrink is zero and the weight is unchanged. The tool shows this rather than refusing the input.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly is shrink?
The reduction in weight when grain is dried from its delivered moisture to the moisture the contract pays at. It is not a fee or a deduction for quality — it is the water that physically leaves the load.
Why is shrink more than the difference in moisture points?
Because the percentage is taken against the final mass, not the initial one. Going from 24% to 14% removes ten points of water, but relative to the delivered weight that is 10 ÷ 86 = 11.63%, not 10%.
What moisture is grain usually settled at here?
Maize and wheat are typically traded around 13–14%, sunflower and rapeseed lower, around 9%. The exact figure is in your contract, which is why the tool asks rather than assuming.
Does the tool include a drying charge?
No. It calculates only the weight lost as water. Dryers usually bill separately for energy and handling, and those rates vary too much to build in.
Why does my ticket differ slightly from this figure?
Moisture readings depend on the sample drawn and the meter used, and some buyers round moisture to a half point or apply a fixed handling loss on top. Small differences are normal; a large one is worth questioning.
Can it work backwards, from dry weight to wet?
Enter the dry weight as the delivered weight and the target as the wet moisture and you get the mass at the higher moisture, since the relation is symmetric. The tool itself only allows drying, so use it in this reversed sense deliberately.
Is it worth drying at home or selling wet?
Compare the value of the settled weight against the drying cost and your own energy and time. This tool gives you the weight side of that comparison exactly; the price side depends on the day.
What is dry matter and why is it shown?
It is the part of the load that is not water, and it never changes during drying. Seeing it makes the arithmetic obvious: at 24% moisture, 10 t contains 7.6 t of dry matter, and that same 7.6 t becomes 8.84 t once it sits at 14%.
Can I use it for hay or silage?
The water arithmetic is identical, so yes for a weight estimate. Forage moistures are far higher (60–70% for silage), so keep an eye on the values — a small percentage error at high moisture moves the result a lot.
How precise are the results?
Exact for the numbers you type. Since a moisture meter is typically accurate to a few tenths of a point, treat the last kilogram of the output as noise rather than a promise.
Does it accept a decimal comma?
Yes, 14,5 and 14.5 both work, and weights can be entered in kilograms or tonnes.
Is anything sent to a server?
No. The calculation runs in your browser; your delivery figures stay on your device.
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