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