WHEAT AS A FEEDSTOCK FOR FUEL ETHANOL

Canadian Prairie Spring and Soft White Spring wheats, which contained high levels of starch, gave higher concentrations of ethanol after fer mentation than was obtained with high-protein Hard Red Spring wheat. D ry milling to remove fiber and to concentrate the starch in the flour resulted in even greater increases in ethanol content of the beer, alt hough final ethanol yields were reduced on a per ton of wheat basis. H owever, preprocessing of the grain would increase the throughput rate and capacity of ethanol plants. It was estimated that bran removal cou ld increase plant capacity by 20.3-26.4%, based on the three market cl asses evaluated in this study. The bran fraction separated from grain during preprocessing could increase revenue from sale of coproducts, t hus improving the ratio of grain cost to revenue.