Coproducts
Separation for Oil, Fractionation for Protein, So What about the Fiber? By Mallorie F. Wilken
Protein, protein, protein … Distillers grains and protein are a major focus for feeding the world’s growing population and middle class through animal agriculture. The focus is for good reason—in recent years, distillers grains have proven to be an animal feed commodity with its own supply and demand curves that are no longer tethered to corn like they used to be. The cattle industry is the original user of distillers grains. The producers, feeders and nutritionists learned how to feed this ethanol coproduct before universities even had funding for the research. The leaders in the cattle industry used lab-reported product composition to determine the first inclusion levels in commercial settings. They experienced firsthand the benefits and challenges offered by feeding distillers grains. The differences in animal performance observed from feeding wet product (35% solids) versus modified product
(45% solids) versus dried product (90% solids) initiated questions for the preliminary research trials. When the trademarked Base Tricanter System (BTS) was available for installation to pull distillers corn oil (DCO) from the feeds, the cattle feeders discovered that the reduced fat content caused feed efficiency to decline slightly. This shift in product composition had a negative impact on their bottom line due to cattle staying on feed longer and a need to increase the inclusion levels of more expensive feeds in the diet to maintain growth and performance. Cattle feeders today often purchase DCO to obtain growth rates similar to those observed in animals prior to BTS. These actions display the importance of distillers grains and their components as a major feed ingredient in meat animal rations. Fat found its way to the market very easily via the demand for corn oil in the feed and diesel markets. Protein is in high demand globally for livestock production. However, corn remains an imper-
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36 | ETHANOL PRODUCER MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2021
