Cooked rice texture and rice flour pasting properties; impacted by rice temperature during milling

Rice milling plays a key factor in determining rice quality and value. Therefore accurate quality assessments are critical to the rice industry. This study was undertaken to assess the effect of exposing rice to elevated temperatures during milling, on cooked rice texture and rice flour pasting properties. Two long (Cybonnett and Francis) and one medium (Jupiter) rice (oryzae sativa L.) cultivars were milled using McGill laboratory mill for 30 and 40 s after warmed up the mill before milling. Four different milling temperatures per milling duration were achieved. Cooked rice texture properties were assessed using a uniaxial compression test and rice flour pasting properties measured using a TA-2000 rheometer. Results of this study showed that exposure of rice to high temperatures during milling significantly decreased cooked rice firmness. An increase in milled rice temperature after milling from 10.0 to 13.3 °C resulted in a 5.4 and 8.1 N decrease in cooked rice firmness. Although not always significant, the increase in milled rice temperature during milling resulted in an increase in cooked rice stickiness. The increase in milling temperature also showed significant increase in rice flour pasting properties. Changes in rice functional characteristics were attributed to the changes occurring to rice chemical constituents due to temperature exposure as indicated by the increase in rice protein hydrophobicity. Proteins are known to affect rice starch water holding capacity and other starch gelatinization properties.