Abstract: Bulk rice or other cereal grain is rapidly and economically dried with reduced or negligible breakage of individual kernels by alternately subjecting the grain to primary drying airflows during drying periods and less desiccating drying airflows during tempering periods. The airflows during the tempering period are sufficient to prevent the accumulation of free moisture at the set point or hardened starch of the kernels, which moisture accumulation has been found to be a cause of fissuring, while allowing reduction of the moisture gradients built up within the kernels by the preceding drying period. In one form of the invention, the grain is continuously traveled downward within a drying tower in which relatively fast and/or hot primary drying airflows are directed into the grain at vertically spaced apart drying regions and in which relatively slow and/or cooler drying airflows are directed into the grain at tempering locations situated between the primary drying regions.