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Shipping, storage tested for dried distillers grains

By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — First came the creation of distillers grains, dried (DDGs) and wet; next, came finding uses for the ethanol byproducts.

Now, researchers are testing ways to store and ship them. Nebraska Corn Board Ag Program Manager Kelly Brunkhorst said there are 45 million tons of DDGs alone being produced in the United States each year.

University of Nebraska extension educator Dennis Bauer has been working with farmers in his state toward finding the best ways to store wet distillers grains. Nebraska feedlots have been feeding DDGs for years; Bauer said at a concentration of 30 percent protein and 125 percent the energy value of plain field corn, it’s a good way to give cattle ample nutrition with less volume.

But wet distillers grains, while also nutritious, have posed a challenge. There are times of year they cost less, and he explained if there was some way to store the byproduct with little to no spoilage, it could be mixed with “filler” hay and other dry forage during winter months – and cut down on a farmer’s costs.

Keep out the air

“How do you store a wet product that’s either a 45 percent wet product, or 35 percent?” Bauer asked those assembled at the National Corn Growers Assoc. Corn Utilization & Technology Conference in Kansas City last week.

He described some of the trials – and tribulations – he and Nebraska livestock producers tried with wet distillers grains. The product was mixed with 15 percent hay, creating silage that was 48 percent dry matter and 22 percent crude protein. At one property, the farmer created a bunker bordered by hay bales and covered with plastic and hay on top of that to keep out the air. Bauer described the results a few months later, when it was uncovered, as having “very little spoilage.”

At another farm, ground cornstalks were used in place of the 15 percent hay and stored similarly during the summer. “We fed this product to yearling heifers and also to (the farmer’s) bulls … and that was the only product this operation used for the past two years, for energy,” Bauer said.

By the following April, that particular bunker of silage still experienced no spoilage. “I think the secret is to keep the air out of it,” he said. “If you can keep the oxygen out, there’s really very little spoilage.”

On two other farms, the mixture was similarly stored in a pit, covered by plastic and then weighed down by tires in June. By December, one was good for livestock to eat, while the other was not – the only difference is the second had been pilfered by raccoons tearing holes into the plastic covering, and had let air in to spoil it.

On another farm, the farmer packed in the mixture with 1 pound of salt for every square foot before covering it. “Very little mold” is what Bauer described on top of the silage, when it was uncovered a few months later in the winter. “It looks about as good as the day he put it in,” and even smelled the same. At another farm where the bunker was deeper and the silage/hay mixture piled higher but stored the same way with plastic, Bauer said the farmer had mixed and packed the forage with a loader and tractor, leaving very little air in the mixture.

“That was in there as hard as a rock,” he explained. “You could hardly take your finger and scratch it.”

Pelletizing

Kurt Rosentrater, an ag engineer with the USDA’s North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Brookings, S.D., took to the lectern immediately after Bauer to talk about adding value to DDGs by making them into pellets for shipping and sale.

Why pelletize DDGs? Rosentrater explained it would increase bulk density and reduce feed waste over feeding DDGs to livestock loose. He said it may also improve usage of DDGs in rangeland settings, such as he sees in places like western South Dakota. It can also be shipped with more ease and less mess.

Like anything, there are also disadvantages to pelletizing. A mill would need special equipment, as well as extra steam and electricity for power to run it.

It would need dedicated space for that equipment and storage. New feed pellets have to be cooled quickly so they don’t spoil, and fine particles have to be removed from the finished product.

“Not a small proposition” was how Rosentrater described outfitting a mill to produce pellets. On top of that, there’s finding the right formula for conditioning the pellets so they travel well, but retain the desirable nutrients of DDGs – for example, starches and proteins help with the “binding” but sugars and other components actually hinder the process. Fat content makes a difference. And then there’s finding the right temperature and moisture at which to make the pellets – and even what size to make them.

All these things decide how durable a pellet is, and Rosentrater’s trials have produced them in a broad range, from 25-90 percent durable.

“It’s more an art than it is a science, in many ways – like a lot in this industry,” he said.

Based on his trials, he estimated a mill might be able to process 20 tons of DDGs into pellets per hour, for a cost of between $1-$2 per ton. He was careful to note that his trials may not work the same for anyone else, because of so many uncertain variables.
“This is the beginning of the story,” Rosentrater explained. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.”

6/12/2008