AKFish,
I have ready many of your posts but for the life of me I can not remember what you cut your hay with (and I am too lazy today to search out that answer)? If it is not either a sickle based mower conditioner (aka haybine) or a discbine then that would be the first change I would personally make in switching to a unit that conditions the hay before doing the chemical thing.
Sure lots of people on here will post that people do not need conditioning and plain ole disc mowers and drum mowers work great. Then you check where they live and it is a hot arid climate like Texas and Arizona.
I know what it is like to get my hay dry in a humid climate like Southwest Ohio. I can only imagine what trials Alaska weather would provide.
I cut with an ole Hesston 1120 sickle based mower conditioner and then use my ole JD 594 rake on steel to flippy the windrows as many times as needed to get it dry. That is almost always at least 3 times (3rd time being the final rake to bale) and is sometimes even 4 times (4th time being the final rake to bale). My rake makes loose fluffy windrows that dry well without sun bleaching. Sure raking 3 times sounds awful but it is really no different than tedding twice and raking once as far as trips across the field.
I do know that the person who buys my hay also buys from other people too. My hay smells so much better than the other people's hay that he buys from that it is not even a comparison. In theory my ingredients (Timothy. clover, and plain orchard/pasture grass mix) are of lesser quality in regards to ingredients of the other hay suppliers he buys from. My guess is the other supplier cuts it, lets it lay, rakes it once, and bales it wet clumps and all.
Sure that other guy said that no one makes dusty hay on purpose, but it takes guessing right on the weather, hard work, and investing even extra work if required, along with some good luck to make good hay. Just ask yourself if you were a caged animal and provided the choice of 2 different bales of hay to eat and if you know for a fact that you would choose the bale of hay that you made since it smells so much better, is not dusty, is NOT treated with vinegar tasting chemicals, then you will know you have done everything correctly.
My wife (farm girl raised) and me (city boy who was only a farmer wannabe who grew up raising soybeans on rented ground elsewhere on weekends) always joke back and forth about the hay we make. She sure is always impressed as she had her doubts on whether we could do it or not back when we started our masochistic hobby of haymaking. True Story: We temporarily stored a load of hay in her family farm home place barn for few days this summer. This hay was made by both her and I together working as a team (she often floppy's the windrows while I am at my real job). She said it had been over 35 years since that barn smelled that good. Made be feel good (and proud) as her dad has been long gone for decades.