Scientists from the Eastern Regional Research Center of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), report a process for the production of ethanol from winter barley. Winter barley is reported as a starchy feedstock for ethanol production, which is not food-based. However, in addition to starch, it also has a high content of beta-glucans (polysaccharides of glucose), which increases its viscosity (and therefore increases production cost), when processed into ethanol. The ARS scientists developed a process which can overcome the viscosity problem caused by beta-glucans, and at the same time, produce ethanol. Called the "EDGE" process (enhanced dry grinding enzymatic process), winter barely is first size-reduced (by dry grinding in a Wiley mill), and then mixed with deionized water. The slurry is then added with four enzymes: (1) beta-glucanases, (2) beta-glucosidase, (3) alpha-amylase, and (4) glucoamylase. The first two enzymes breakdown the glucans into their component sugars (glucose), while the last two enzymes convert the starch component (in the winter barley), also into glucose. The sugar mixture is finally fermented to ethanol. The scientists report that ethanol can be produced at a concentration of 15% (by volume) from 30% of dry solids. The residue after ethanol processing (called "distillers dry grains, DDG), was also found to be a suitable ruminant or mono-gastric animal feed. The full report is published in the open access journal, Biotechnology for Biofuels (URL above)..