Dehydration by successive pressure drops for drying paddy rice treated by instant controlled pressure drop

The aim of the present work was to study the application of the dehydration by successive pressure drops (DDS) process to different varieties of paddy rice initially treated by the instantaneous controlled pressure drop (DIC), which is a high-temperature, short time postharvest treatment (moisture content about 20-25% dry basis) and takes less than 30s. DIC paddy rice is dried by DDS in a relatively short time and a high milling quality is obtained (12-13% db in about 2h). The final rice is white, easily distinguishing it from the standard parboiled one. Without a tempering period, DDS rice has less than 3% of broken grains, with a high organoleptic quality (preservation of the natural aroma with a firm and non-sticky texture), and the cooking time of both brown (whole) and white DIC rice is very short (15 and 7min, respectively).