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Highlights

More moisture can be removed in a single drying pass without severely fissuring kernels when samples are tempered than when immediately cooled without tempering.

Abstract. Improper rice drying results in kernel fissuring, leading to head rice yield reduction due to breakage during milling. The objective of this study was to determine the percentage points (pp) of moisture content (MC) reduction that can be achieved in a single drying pass without significantly fissuring kernels. Long-grain rough rice of cultivars CL XL745 and Diamond at initial MCs of 18%, 17%, 16%, 15%, and 14% were dried using air at 45°C/20% relative humidity (RH), 50°C/15% RH, 55°C/12% RH, 60°C/10% RH, and 65°C/8% RH to MCs of 17%, 16%, 15%, 14%, 13%, or 12% with and without post-drying tempering. All temperature/RH combinations resulted in a humidity ratio of 0.012 kg water kg^-1 dry air. Tempering was conducted at the drying air temperature for 4 h. The resulting samples achieved between 1 and 7 pp of MC reduction in a single drying pass. The pp of MC reduction that can be attained in a single drying pass without causing significant fissuring varied across the cultivars tested. Generally, ~2 pp of MC reduction was achieved in a single drying pass for CL XL745 and ~4 pp for Diamond without causing adverse fissuring when samples were not tempered after drying. However, with tempering, ~3.5 pp of MC reduction was achieved in a single drying pass for CL XL745 and ~5.5 pp for Diamond without causing significant fissuring. However, these amounts varied depending on the drying air conditions and initial MC. For both cultivars, tempering immediately after drying reduced the fissured kernel percentage by up to half of that when the kernels were not tempered. These findings quantify the importance of rice tempering and provide information on how much moisture can be safely removed in a single drying pass. Such findings may be applied to different dryer types to reduce fissuring due to drying, thereby minimizing head rice yield reductions.