Comparative study on hydration kinetics of selected Indian paddy varieties

Abstract

Paddy is one of the major food crops in the world as well as staple food for more than half of the world population. It is rich source of carbohydrates, proteins vitamins and minerals. It is processed by different techniques, among that parboiling is widely used in industries. Soaking is an important process in parboiling and needed to be optimized for different paddy varieties. In this study hydration kinetics of two selected paddy varieties (ADT43 and CO-51) were studied by soaking at different temperatures of 30°C, 40°C, 50°C, 60°C and 70°C for a particular time period of 8 h. For the study, samples were kept in water bath maintained at constant temperatures and samples were withdrawn at 30 min interval until 4 h and 60 min interval until 8 h. It was found that hydration kinetics of grains is a function of temperature; chemical composition also affects the same. The starch content found to be 65.78% for ADT43 and 80.20% for CO-51 due to varietal difference. The amylose content found to be 26.79% for CO-51 and 23.69% for ADT43. This study will be helpful in optimizing the parboiling conditions and other processing techniques of paddy.