NOVELTY - Hydrothermally treating (m1) stillage comprises: heating stillage to 200-350 degrees F; altering the physicochemical properties of the stillage by making solids in the stillage less hydrophilic; enabling facile separation of the stillage into a high protein solids fraction, a stickwater fraction, and an oil fraction due to the altering step; and creating unique product fractions including the high protein solids fraction, the stickwater fraction, and the oil fraction.    USE - The method is useful for: hydrothermally treating stillage; and recovering oil, stickwater, high protein solids fraction and high protein meal, ethanol fermentation and recovering glycerol, organic acids, organic compounds, inorganic compounds or fermentation inhibitors (all claimed), metabolites, biomass and media.    ADVANTAGE - The method: increases bioavailability of stillage; enables facile separation of the stillage into a high protein solids fraction, a stickwater fraction, and oil fraction; improves overall fermentation process (increased fermentation rate and final titer) and generate useful products; produces product fractions including a fraction high in oil, a high protein solids fraction, and a stickwater fraction having low amounts of oil and suspended solids, where the stick-water fraction is chemically different than thin stillage and serves as improved backset in an ethanol process and as an improved fermentation medium for other fermentation processes, thus avoiding capital cost and operating cost; creates low solids stickwater that avoids the operational issues associated with higher solids; allows flexibility for varying solids concentration and stickwater; provides for additional oil recovery without loss of the enhanced stickwater benefits; eliminates the use of evaporators; and recovers 0.8-1.3 lb maize oil per bushel of maize processed into the plant. The low suspended solids: in the stickwater allows more efficient removal of fermentation inhibitors; are fermentable and reduce the amount of new maize flour that can be added to the slurry, thus increasing ethanol plant efficiency and throughput; is utilized as fermentation media for algae, fungi, and other useful microorganisms; and when treated, the stickwater can be sold as a base media base or aqueous feed along with the other bio-products produced instead of or in addition to being recycled back to fermentation to produce more ethanol.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are also included for:    (1) oil, stickwater, high protein solids fraction and high protein meal recovered from the method (m1) as above per se;    (2) performing (m2) ethanol fermentation comprising treating stillage to enable facile separation by heating the stillage to 200-350 degrees F and separating the treated stillage to recover a high protein solids fraction, a stickwater fraction, and an oil fraction;    (3) oil, stickwater, high protein solids fraction and high protein meal recovered from the method (m2) as above per se;    (4) performing (m3) ethanol fermentation comprising separating whole stillage into stillage and wet cake, hydrothermally fractionating the stillage to create unique product fractions by heating the stillage to 200-350 degrees F, separating the heat treated stillage into a high protein solids fraction, a first stickwater fraction and a stickwater/oil emulsion, recovering oil from the stickwater/oil emulsion, recovering a second stickwater fraction from the stickwater/oil emulsion and adding the second stickwater fraction to the first stickwater fraction and further processing the first and second stickwater fractions by recycling at least a portion of the stickwater to a front end of an ethanol plant, biological processing and chemical processing, or using the first and second stickwater fractions as growth media in the processing step;    (5) performing (m4) ethanol fermentation comprising separating whole stillage into wet cake and stillage, hydrothermally treating stillage by heating the stillage to 200-350 degrees F and adding all or a portion of the treated stillage to the ethanol fermentation or operation upstream of fermentation;    (6) performing (m5) ethanol fermentation, comprising separating whole stillage into a first cut solids stream and thin stillage, performing a particle size reduction step on all or a portion of the first cut solids, returning the reduced particle size solids to the thin stillage stream to produce thick stillage, hydrothermally treating the thick stillage by heating to 200-350 degrees F and adding all or a portion of the treated stillage to the ethanol fermentation step or an operation upstream of fermentation;    (7) increasing bioavailability of stillage components to microorganisms, comprising hydrothermally treating stillage by heating the stillage to 200-350 degrees F, increasing the bioavailability of components in the stillage and adding the hydrothermally treated stillage to media and providing to microorganisms; and    (8) a product comprising glycerol, organic acids, organic compounds, inorganic compounds or fermentation inhibitors recovered by methods (m1) and (m2) as above per se.