Wet milling process for refining whole wheat

Claim 1

A continuous wet wheat refining process, which comprises: (A) cleaning whole wheat kernels to separate the extraneous vegetable matter; (B) wet milling whole wheat kernels by sequentially: (a) steeping the whole wheat kernels, (b) removing the soaked wheat kernels from steeping and milling them while wet to reduce the particle size, (c) separating the milled kernels of (b) into a first fraction comprising germ, fiber (bran) and smaller endosperm particles, and a second fraction comprising larger endosperm particles, (d) decreasing the particle size of the endosperm particles in the wet second fraction of (c), and (e) combining the first fraction of (c) comprising germ, fiber (bran) and smaller endosperm particles with the second fraction from (d) comprising endosperm particles of decreased size and steeping the composite to form a mill starch slurry, (C) separating a fraction comprising fiber (bran) tailings from the mill starch slurry of (B)(e); (D) washing and dewatering the fiber (bran) tailings fraction of (C) and combining the washwater with the defibered mill starch slurry of (C); (e) separating the composite of (D) into a starch-rich fraction and a protein-rich fraction; (F) concentrating and dewatering the protein-rich fraction of (E) to obtain a dewatered protein-rich fraction and filtrate; (G) evaporating at least a portion of the filtrate of (F) to increase the concentration of solids; (H) combining the cleanings of (A), the dewatered fiber (bran) tailings fraction of (C), the aqueous concentrate of (G) and the dewatered protein-rich fraction of (F) to provide a wet animal feed product; and (I) drying the wet feed product of (H) to provide a final animal feed product.