A continuous process for parboiling brown rice

A continuous process for parboiling of brown rice suitable for adoption at small to medium scale operations has been developed. Brown rice obtained from a commercial type of paddy (variety 'IR 20') was soaked at ambient conditions and roasted in the continuous roaster commonly used for frying Bengalgram. The roaster was modified by interchanging the path of movement of rice-sand mixture to overcome the problem of non-uniform parboiling, excessive puffing and charring of Grains. The studies indicated that using the modified gram roaster. soaked brown rice (m.c. 32% wb) could be roasted at a rice-sand temperature of around 120-130 degrees C in about 30 sec. Under such conditions. brown rice was mildly parboiled (imm. EMC-S - 50%).