On Wednesday, our Wagonmasters (organizers of this rally) had planned a few activities, so we drove as a group to an ethanol plant in a nearby town...
 |
Our group entering the plant administration building.
|
 |
Some of the grain storage facilities at the plant.
|
 |
An overview of the process
|
 |
The input corn is split into ethanol, corn oil, and "DDGs" (Dried Distillers Grain).
|
 |
They grow a LOT of corn around here... As they come in, the trucks are weighed and the grain is sampled before the trucks deliver the corn.
|
 |
Depending on the consistency of the sample of corn, they are sent to one of the 3 receiving pits. I got the idea that, before they had a drier here to process overly damp corn, there may have been loads rejected, but now, they can work with any corn that they get.
|
 |
They can also receive corn by train car load, but the fellow providing the information said that they don't this much now -- I got the idea that it was because they get sufficient quantity delivered by truck (train cars would be bringing corn from a greater distance).
|
There were a lot of other slides about the process of creating ethanol -- the main thing I learned was that it is very similar to other distilling methods -- lots of commonality to the distillery we visited in Wyoming in late May as we were driving across from Nevada to Illinois!
 |
In this case, the final product is ethanol.
|
 |
A "denaturant" (gasoline) is added so no one will drink the ethanol.
|
I had heard the term "Denatured Alcohol" for rubbing alcohol -- I never realized that meant that something was added to make it toxic or bad tasting so it would not be consumed by humans.
The process for creating corn oil:
And the process of creating the DDGs:
 |
DDGs are sold to livestock feeders (primarily hogs) to feed out to their animals. It has all the protein of the original corn (I think he said it was 40% protein).
|
 |
When we left the ethanol plant, we drove a short distance to Bishop Hill, the location of a Swedish colony founded in 1846. We ate at the "Bishop Hill Eatery and Bakery".
|
 |
After lunch, a local storyteller shared some of the history of the town with our group.
|
 |
We visited a gift shop and enjoyed looking at Swedish articles -- this was a bag to commemorate the colony founded here.
|
After we got back to the campground, we visited the pool (it was refreshing but a little chilly), enjoyed ice cream sandwiches at Happy Hour and celebrated the 42nd wedding anniversary of one of the couples in our rally group, and then went for a walk on the trail around the back portion of the campground property...
 |
They had a couple of humorous signs by the pond...
|
 |
Close up of Sign 1
|
 |
Second sign...
|
 |
Close up of Sign 2.
|
 |
The trail was really nice -- mowed and through the woods and in the open fields too...
|
 |
The part through the woods was particularly pretty and enjoyable to be in the cool shade.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment