Liquid Sugar Hauling

When l did it 45 minutes was about normal. We had trailer mounted stainless pumps so it was simple process. Hook up the hose and go. Occasionally we had a customer with their own pump. We had our own wash bay so I rarely had to use a tank wash on the road. You could load similar products on top of each other back then but I'm sure that's changed now.

 

If they allow you to top load the same product then I'm sure they require a washout after a certain number of loads have been hauled, or if the trailer has sat empty for a certain period of time.

 

We hauled a lot of liquid sugar during the baby formula shortage and at least with Cargill, we needed to was out every load. They did have a program where the customer could agree on top loading, BUT it had to be within 24 hours of loading.

To answer the original question, about an hour to offload for liquid sugar.

 

Yes I'm thinking it was 24 hours from the time of loading. It was a long time ago so l couldn't remember exactly.

 

I believe the time on a washout can vary depending on the customer. When I hauled sugar we had 72 hours. Last time I dropped by for a visit they were complaining that it had been changed to 24 hours. A washout is a 100 mile round trip from where they load and doing it eff's up your HOS. With freight & rates being what they are there isn't much they can do besides bend over & smile.

Also, if you are hauling a kosher load you will need a kosher washout.

I really enjoyed hauling sugar. There is some skill involved in being smooth with a viscous liquid in a smooth bore tank. Especially with corn syrup, that stuff rolls slow and hits hard!

 

Just as a side note, I'm genuinely surprised that sugar is hauled in liquid form, considering bulk dry blow tanks could cut out a significant portion of the weight.

As a question- do liquid sugar tanks unload faster than blow tanks? I could see that as a cause. Maybe that would answer OP's question.

 

A former coworker told me that the problem with hauling sugar in powder form is that you have to pay attention to the air temperature otherwise the sugar will begin to caramelize.

 

That is true, you need to keep an eye on the blower discharge temp, or at least have a decent nose, you can smell it if you're getting it that hot.

 

Liquid drivers always seemed to unload at a pretty predictable pace with their products. By comparison, dry bulk was much more of a crap shot. Pneumatic trailers can be temperamental cranky ########. You could drag the same trailer to the same customer with the same product 2 days in a row, one day it would come off like butter and the next you'd pull your hair out trying to unload.

The small number of sugar unloads I did I'd say took about an hour and a half if memory serves me right. By comparison, sugars red headed step sister, dexrose, could take anywhere from an hour and a half to as long as 3 and a half, depending on a few variables. The longest one I ever had was just over 10 hours. Overall I'd say the liquid sugar guys I saw were probably pretty square at an hour and done, maybe a little less?

I think (and this is just my opinion from seeing things) that part of getting the product in liquid form is that everyone pretty much understands what is happening with liquids once it's unloaded and in the plant. You have tanks, valves, pumps and the like. If something starts leaking you see a puddle. Kind of everyday things in any manufacturing process. What never stopped amazing me in 5 and a half years of running dry bulk was how few customers actually understood how a silo functioned, or at least as important, how to maintain one.