What is DDGS?

DDGS is distillers dried grains with solubles: the dried feed left after a dry-grind ethanol plant ferments the starch out of corn, with the condensed solubles blended back in before drying. On the Oct 19, 2026 USDA board it cost $188 a ton, the national median across 11 FOB plant regions, which bought a pound of crude protein for 92 percent of what soybean meal charged.

DDGS, DDG and the other distillers grains

"Distillers grains" is a family name. USDA's Economic Research Service uses it for five co-products of a dry-mill ethanol plant: distillers wet grains, distillers dried grains (DDG), wet grains with solubles, dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and condensed distillers solubles.

The split happens after distillation. Feedipedia describes the leftover mash, the whole stillage, going through a centrifuge into wet grains and a thin liquid. The liquid is evaporated into condensed solubles, a syrup, and the syrup is blended back with the grains to make the "with solubles" products. ERS notes that US ethanol plants blend and dry the two to get DDGS. So a dried distillers grains price from a US plant is, in practice, a DDGS price, and USDA's weekly processor report heads the line "Corn Distillers Dried Grain."

The wet versions skip the dryer. ERS puts distillers wet grains at about 65 percent moisture, cheaper per ton but costly to haul and quick to spoil. Wet distillers grains sold for $60 a ton on the Oct 19, 2026 board; wet vs dry distillers grains compares the two on a dry-matter basis.

How much of a bushel becomes DDGS

ERS puts DDGS at about 31 percent of each bushel of corn a dry mill grinds. In the 2010/11 marketing year it counted 116.2 million metric tons of corn going into dry-mill ethanol and 36.3 million tons of DDGS coming out, and found DDGS can account for about 20 percent of a typical plant's revenue. The feed is a fixed share of the ethanol run, not a crop anyone plants for it, which is why DDGS prices track ethanol as much as they track feed demand.

What is in it

With the starch gone, what is left concentrates. Feedipedia's samples average 29.5 percent crude protein on a dry-matter basis, with a range of 25.2 to 33.5, and only 9.3 percent starch. Fat is the big variable. Plants that spin corn oil out before the dryer sell a leaner feed, and Feedipedia's de-oiled samples carry 4.2 percent fat against 11.1 percent across all samples. That costs energy: University of Nebraska-Lincoln beef researchers put full-fat DDGS at 113.4 percent of corn's feeding value for finishing cattle and de-oiled DDGS at 103.4 percent. Two loads quoted under one name can carry different value, so the fat line on the spec sheet matters.

The protein is short on lysine: 3.0 pounds per 100 pounds of protein in Feedipedia's table, against 6.2 for soybean meal.

Who feeds it

ERS finds DDGS goes mainly to dairy and beef rations in the United States. Every class of livestock and poultry can use it, but cattle use it more readily than hogs and poultry do, because the rumen handles the fiber and a low-lysine protein that a pig or a broiler cannot. How much of it goes in a given ration is a nutritionist's call, and this site does not make it.

What it has cost since 2022

DDGS fell from an average of $252 a ton in 2022 to $153 in 2025, then rose to $174 for 2026 through Oct 19. Against soybean meal it was cheap protein in most weeks: it bought crude protein for less in 179 of the 236 weekly reports from Feb 7, 2022 through Oct 19, 2026. Against corn it was usually the dearer energy, cheaper per pound of TDN in only 68 of 212 weeks. The price also depends on where you buy: on Oct 19, 2026, FOB plant quotes ran from $174 in Wisconsin to $220 in Kansas and $270 in California, and delivered to the Pacific Northwest it cost $284. The DDGS price page carries every region's quote.

Worked example: the week of Oct 19, 2026

Take the national median, $188.33 a ton (the page rounds it to $188).

1. Dry matter. At 90 percent dry matter, a ton holds 1,800 pounds of dry matter, so the price is $209 per ton of dry matter.
2. Protein. At 29.5 percent crude protein, that is 531 pounds of protein, or $0.355 a pound. Soybean meal at $369 a ton carried 952 pounds for $0.387 a pound, so DDGS cost 92 percent as much.
3. Energy. At 88 percent TDN, a ton carries 1,584 pounds of energy, or $0.119 a pound. Corn at $156 a ton cost $0.101, so DDGS cost 118 percent of corn on energy.

That week DDGS was a protein bargain and an energy premium at once. A year earlier, on Oct 20, 2025, it was $149 a ton. The guide to comparing feed ingredients walks through the same two divisions for any feed.

The latest USDA week

DDGS was $188 per ton as of Oct 26, 2026 (national median across 11 FOB plant regions, USDA), up 23% from $153 a year earlier. That is $0.355 per pound of crude protein, or 96% of soybean meal's cost per pound of protein.

The Ration reports USDA's DDGS prices as published and does the cost-per-nutrient math on them. It does not forecast prices or tell a reader what to feed.