Effects of fluidized bed drying temperature and tempering time on quality of waxy rice

Waxy rice, which is soft and sticky in nature, can be used as a raw material to produce many food products. After being harvested, high-moisture waxy paddy must be dried to appropriate moisture content to prolong its storage life and to achieve higher head rice yield. Fluidized bed dryer could be used to dry waxy rice at high-temperature. However, due to the high heat and mass transfer rates during drying, stresses are generated in a rice kernel, leading to crack and low head rice yield. Tempering is thus recommended to reduce the moisture-induced stresses in the kernel after rapid drying. In this study, the effects of fluidized bed drying temperature (90, 110, 130 °C) and tempering time (30–120 min) on the quality of waxy rice, i.e., head rice yield, thermal properties, pasting properties, color, translucent kernel and microstructure, were investigated. The results showed that head rice yield of waxy rice after drying was significantly lower than that of the reference sample even when tempering was performed. Higher drying temperatures led to higher head rice yield while the tempering time did not have any effect on the head rice yield except when the drying temperature of 90 °C was used. Drying at higher temperatures also affected the starch granule morphology and the pasting properties. Waxy rice changed its appearance from opaque white to translucent when being dried at 130 °C.