.   83
FEED BY-PRODUCTS FROM GRAIN ALCOHOL AND
WHISKEY STILLAGE*
C.   S.   BORUFF AND L.   P.  WeINER
Hiram Walker & Sons, Inc.   .
Peoria, Illinois
In one important respect the distilling industry is different from
all other industries: technically, as well as legally, the industry was
dead and buried for thirteen years. There is no question that dis¬
tillation of alcoholic beverages flourished during the so-called Prohi¬
bition era, but the methods employed can hardly be considered good
practice—from any viewpoint.
Even before prohibition distillation was somewhat of an art.
Of course there were exceptions, but most pre-prohibition distilleries
were small affairs operated by purely empirical methods. Therefore,
when the industry was legally resurrected, in 1933, technically it
started almost from scratch. So, in early post-repeal days, as in pre-
prohibition days, the problem of what to do with the residues from
distillation was in the nature of a problem of disposing of a nuisance.
It was regarded as a waste disposal problem. That is no longer
true; it is now a matter of recovery, not disposal—recovery of valu¬
able by-products rather than disposal of an industrial waste. Feed
by-products from grain alcohol and whiskey stillage have become
a profitable business, of no small magnitude.
In one sense the recovery of grain residues from the distillation
of liquors is probably almost as old as distillation itself. In one
form or another these residues have been fed to livestock for a long
time. Although most distilleries used to discharge their stillage
directly into rivers or streams, some were a little more progressive.
They would pump the stillage to troughs in feeding yards where
cattle or hogs were fattened for market. Or they would sell it to
local farmers who came for it in tank wagons or with a wagon full
of barrels.
In some of the larger and more enterprising distilleries the
stillage was screened before being run to waste. The screenings were
then pressed and dried. In that way a considerable portion (about
50%) of the solids in the residue could be recovered in a form in
which it could be stored, more or less indefinitely, and shipped long
distances.    But rare indeed was the distillery in which any thought
* Presented by Dr. R. A. Rasmussen, Nutritionist in the Research Department
of Hiram Walker & Sons, Inc.