Abstract:
Soaking is an essential step in any industrial scale rice cooking process. The objective of this thesis is to study the effects of soaking temperatures (30, 40, 50, 60 and 65oC) and chemicals (10 percent ethanol and 0.1 percent lactic acid) on the properties of soaked and cooked rice. The results showed that the water absorption of rice soaked in water at 30 and 40oC and in 0.1 percent lactic acid was limited at 30 percent (wet basis) whereas the water absorption of rice soaked in 10 percent ethanol reached a plateau at approximately 27 percent. SEM investigation indicated that the surface and outer layer endosperm of unsoaked rice were smoother and denser than that of all other samples.Based on final water absorption of 30 percent wet basis and 27 percent wet basis (for soaking in ethanol), soaked rice at 30oC for one hour, at 40, 50 and 60oC for 30 minutes, at 65oC for 20 minutes and in 10 percent ethanol and 0.1 percent lactic acid for 40 minutes were selected to cook. During cooking water absorption, degree of gelatinization and total soluble solid and leached amylose content in cooking water of soaked rice increased significantly and the values were higher than that of unsoaked rice. Once the rice samples were completely cooked, the structure of rice was investigated by SEM and the texture was evaluated by texture analyzer. The results showed that surface and outer layer endosperm of cooked rice without soaking was denser than that with soaking. The hardness and stickiness of cooked rice without soaking were significantly higher (p?0.05) than other samples. However, when compared between cooked rice samples with soaking, the hardness of cooked rice soaked in 10 percent ethanol and the stickiness of cooked rice soaked in 0.1 percent lactic acid were significantly higher (p?0.05) than other samples.