Corn received at the plant is screened
to eliminate foreing matter and broken grains.
Dry corn from the storage silos is
softened by steeping to facilitate milling. In different stages,
corn is milled and through mechanical and hydraulic means in hydroclones
and centrifuges, the grain is separated into its constituen parts,
namely, germ, fiber, gluten and starch.
Fiber, together with steep water and
germ meal after oil extraction is dried to obtain gluten feed.
The fiber is also separately dried and sold as corn bran. Crude
corn oil is extracted form de germ, and gluten is produced with
the gluten.
Starch is the main product, which once
purified, can be use for the manufacture of three main product
lines:.
1) Directly dried as corn starch or
used to produce modified starches, pregel starch, dextrins and
adhesives.
2) Converted to traditional corn products,
namely, glucoses, enzimatic syrups, caramel coloring, maltodextrins
and solid glucoses.
3) Converted to modern first and second-generation
high fructose corn syrups, or corn sugar.
Starch, suspended in water, is liquified in the presence of acid
and/or enzymes which convert the starch to a low-dextrose
solution. Treatment with another enzyme continues the
conversion process. Throughout the process, refiners can halt acid or enzyme actions at key points to produce the right
mixture of sugars like dextrose and maltose for syrups to meet
different needs. In some syrups, the conversion of starch to
sugars is halted at an early stage to produce low-to-medium
sweetness syrups. In others, the conversion is allowed to
proceed until the syrup is nearly all dextrose. The syrup is
refined in filters, centrifuges and ion-exchange columns, and
excess water is evaporated. Syrups are sold directly,
crystallized into pure dextrose, or processed further to create
high fructose corn syrup (illustrated
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