Milling quality of parboiled rice under various drying conditions

Abstract. Rice is a main source of nutrition for a large populace around the world. Drying and tempering of rice has been known for a long time but it is still done improperly due to energy cost, expertise and other factors. This causes huge loses in quantity and quality. Different aspects of drying were investigated to optimize the process. Moisture contents were determined. Japonica rice was treated using the parboiling process. The rice was dried and tempered at different periods and temperatures using sealed plastic bags. Various quality parameters were examined. Duncan multiple test was used to analyze data in SAS software. Moisture content after parboiling was increased to 28.3% from the initial 14.3 %. A significant improvement in milling yield from 68.71% of a control to 73.4% of the optimal was recorded. Duncan multiple test and ANOVA analyses showed a possibility in tempering time reduction. Findings from this study provides more information on drying of parboiled Japonica rice and will enable optimization of the process.