Iowa’s newest ethanol plant is on-line. Al Genz, general manager of the Amaizing Energy plant in Denison, says the plant starts processing corn today. “We hope within a short amount of time we’ll be up to full grind,” Genz says. “The process typically from the time you introduce…the corn, fermentation takes about 54 hours and then it’ll go through distillation, so we expect (in) three days we should have some product coming out.” When the plant is operating at full capacity, it will process about 45-thousand bushels of corn and create 123-thousand gallons of ethanol each day. Genz expects it to produce 40 million gallons of ethanol annually. “I’d like to thank all of our investors for having the confidence to put their money into this plant,” Genz says. “I’d like to thank our board members for spending the last five years of their lives working on this project.” The plant will also create about 128-thousand tons of dried distiller grain per year for livestock feed. Production is starting almost a year to the day after the official groundbreaking ceremony. Genz says there were a few glitches but construction was mostly “smooth sailing.” The original finish date for construction was October 16th, so crews finished over a month early. Genz is planning an open house on November 4th for investors.
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