High-temperature air fluidization improves cooking and eating quality and storage stability of brown rice

Abstract

Brown rice contains many valuable active ingredients; but due to its long cooking time, hard texture, heavy rice bran taste, and short shelf life, it is not widely accepted by consumers. Herein, we developed a novel processing technology so-called high-temperature air fluidization (HTAF) to treat brown rice. The effects of the HTAF treatment at 120 °C, 130 °C, and 140 °C for 60 s at a feed rate of 80 kg/h on the quality of brown rice were investigated. The results showed that the treatment with HTAF caused fissures to form on the surface and the interior of brown rice, and these fissures appeared to facilitate the penetration of water into the rice kernels during soaking. The optimal HTAF treatment temperature was 130 °C, the water adsorption of HTAF-treated brown rice at 130 °C (TBR-130) was increased to 25.3% after soaking for 160 min, which was higher than that of white rice and untreated brown rice (UBR; 13.7%). The optimal cooking time for TBR-130 was also 5 min shorter than that for UBR. The results further showed that TBR-130 had a larger degree of volume expansion compared to that of UBR, and cooked TBR-130 had softer texture than cooked UBR. The cohesiveness and sensory quality of TBR-130 were also higher than those of UBR, and the content of flavor compounds in TBR-130 was similar to that of white rice. HTAF caused no obvious damages to the main active components or nutritional components of TBR-130. Finally, TBR-130 had better chromaticity and higher storage stability than UBR. These results demonstrate that the HTAF treatment can improve cooking and eating quality and storage stability without causing obvious damages to nutritional quality of brown rice. This technology may play important roles in an attempt to promote the use of brown rice as staple foods.