Rice millers and rice users use milled rice surface free fatty acid (FFA) content as an indicator of potential off-flavours and colour development. FFA is present because bran lipid and lipase are deposited together on the rice kernel during milling, resulting in FFA formation on the rice surface (Prabhakar & Venkatesh, 1986). Subsequent oxidation of FFA and other lipids (Galliard, 1983) is probably responsible for off-flavour development. Milled rice FFA is conventionally measured by first obtaining a surface lipid extract by Soxhlet extraction. However, the Soxhlet method for rice involves rigorous extraction, with conditions that are an excessive means for obtaining surface nonbound rice lipids and could cause thermally induced lipid changes such as FFA and hydroperoxides breakdown with additional lipid oxidation. Furthermore, the Soxhlet extraction solvent petroleum ether is nonpolar and unlikely to extract polar bran lipids such as phospholipids from the rice surface. The use of a more polar solvent such as chloroform–methanol should extract polar and non-polar lipids.