Vol. 11, Issue 3 (2022)

Author(s):
D Parganiha, S Patel, RK Naik, D Khokhar, NK Mishra and PS Pisalkar

Abstract:
Puffing is a combined process of gelatinization of starch and expansion which is accomplished by exposing the grains to a high temperature for short time. Hence the process may be called as high temperature short time process. During the puffing process, the moisture inside the grain vaporizes as superheated vapour within a short period suddenly and cooks the grain, and escapes due to which the grain expands. Puffed rice is an age old traditional breakfast food regularly consumed in many rice growing countries. The puffing of pre-gelatinized rice is a very easy way of adding value to the rice and convert into ready to eat food. Different methods are used to convert pre-gelatinized milled rice into puffed rice, some of the popular and common methods are hot air puffing, sand roasting, hot oil puffing, gun puffing and microwave puffing. Puffing characteristics were studied for three test varieties of rice at different levels (10, 12, 14 and 16% wb) of moisture content and hot air temperature (280, 2900 and 300 ^oC). The salt concentration was kept constant as 2% w/w. The puffing yield and VER both were recorded to be declined with the increase in the moisture content of the rice and a sharp decrease was observed when the moisture content of the rice exceeded beyond 12% (wb) for all three verities of rice. It was further observed that with the increase in air temperature, the values of puffing yield and VER increased for all the varieties irrespective of the moisture content. It was found that the puffing of rice was better at higher air temperature (300 ^oC). The puffing yield and VER for Mahamaya variety of rice were found to be superior compared to other two varieties (Barhasal and Rajeshwari).