The invention discloses a rotary hearth furnace brown coal drying method and a rotary hearth furnace brown coal drying device which can dry the brown coal at high efficiency and low consumption. The method comprises the following step of: taking overheated steam and high temperature flue gas as a brown coal drying heat source; taking equipment which takes a rotary hearth furnace as a core as a drying device, uniformly distributing the dried brown coal at the furnace bottom of the rotary hearth furnace through a reflection plate distributor; turning the brown coal layer through a turning mechanism in the process of rotating the furnace bottom, obtaining heat of the brown coal through heat exchange, and heating the brown coal. The device comprises a charging system, a feeding hole, a rotary hearth furnace bottom, a furnace wall, a furnace top, a high temperature flue gas and overheated steam inlet, a turning and flue gas injection system, an exhaust gas outlet, a furnace bottom driving system, a furnace bottom supporting roller, a furnace bottom centering roller, a discharging hole and a discharging system, wherein the turning and flue gas injection system comprises a fixing beam, an adjusting mechanism, a plough-shaped turning plate and a high temperature flue gas nozzle. The brown coal with wide particle size range can be directly dried, and large-scale, rapid and low-energy-consumption drying production of the brown coal is realized.