Ethanol Plant

[AquaVitae]

I recently became lucky enough to begin work at an ethanol plant that produces fuel ethanol and rather quickly became acquainted with the differences of small scale home beverage (batch) distillation and large scale continuous industrial production of it for fuel purposes.

First off, heads and fusels are distilled along with the rest of the ethanol, its all combustible and can't really do anything else with it
Second, cooking is of course done with added amylases, both Alpha and gluco, and ordered/used in bulk
Third, and i was not aware of this until i had gotten the job, but i too once used to ponder the food verse fuel debate, untill i had learned that the spent distillers grains are dried and sold as a high protein feed for the livestock industries. When considers that almost one third of crops grown eventually end up as livestock feed, and that high protein is more desirable to a farmer than high carbohydrate, i can see why the plant in which i now work was one of the few to survive the hike in corn prices in 2008, they were actually able to adjust the process for increasing quality of the feed produced, and able to fetch a premium, of course to the detriment of ethanol production, but since EtOH prices had bottomed it was more profitable anyway, so in reality what we see today (as opposed to 5 years ago) are ethanol plants that manage and ensure the quality of all co-products form the process, not just ethanol, which i think is an important aspect to consider, in early 2000s when there was an ethanol plant boom, people were only thinking of the ethanol, and not of any other profit potential, with the spike of corn prices many of those plants died out because they were unable to produce and sell ethanol.

just so knowledge i thought i'd share with this community