Characteristics of Soft Pregelatinized Rice Treated with Malt Enzymes

Abstract

 Treating cooked rice with malt extract not only eliminates the characteristic stickiness of cooked rice, but it also softens the rice grains. By exploiting this characteristic, we developed “soft pregelatinized rice”, which does not contain much moisture and can be prepared without lowering the nutritional content.
 The addition of 1.0 g of malt extract to 100 g of pregelatinized rice followed by the addition of 160 mL of hot water (i.e., the same amount that is added when preparing pregelatinized rice) and heating at 73 °C for 0.5 to 2 h resulted in appropriate reduction of hardness and stickiness without any additional sweetness. The rice, referred to here as “soft pregelatinized rice”, contains the same amount of protein as cooked rice.
 The findings showed that “soft pregelatinized rice”, which has the same nutritional content as cooked rice, can be prepared by treating pregelatinized rice with malt extract at 73 °C for 0.5 to 2 h, without substantially increasing moisture content nor without the need for special processing.