Drying is one of the most widely used processes in the preservation of grains, which involves reducing moisture content by applying air and heat so as to maintain the appearance and nutritional quality of grains as food or viability as seeds. Two drying systems for corn kernels were compared in this study: with cooling and no cooling. These systems consist of the application and no application of airflow at room temperature in the cooling section of a trestle-type continuous flow dryer. The advantage of the system with no cooling in the dryer relies on the fact that grains are cooled in a separate silo, which allows for a better quality product in terms of lower percentage of fissured kernels, higher hectoliter weight and germination rate. The aim of this study was to evaluate these two systems by using mathematical modeling as a tool to make decisions on which drying system to use based on specific electricity and fuel consumption, efficiency and performance of the drying process. The model of dwell time was validated with data obtained from the Thompson model for drying curves of corn kernels, with results comparable to those obtained with this model; the best approximation was observed with the drying system model with no cooling. Furthermore, this system presented lower specific electricity consumption, although there were no significant differences (value p ≥ 0.05) between the values for specific fuel consumption, efficiency and performance observed in the drying process of each system.