The cooking and eating properties of rice change
dramatically with its storage after harvest and this
phenomenon is called aging of rice. It is a physicochemical
process during which its properties like hydration,
swelling, solubility, viscosity and pastiness
change. Rice from freshly harvested paddy cooks to a
pasty consistency, which is due to disintegration of fresh
rice leading to dispersion of starch granules in the
cooking water.
Pastiness can be eliminated if the grain can be hardened
so as to minimize the loss of solids in the gruel. The
process of inducing the changes in rice in a short time to
obtain cooking properties, which resemble that of naturally
aged rice, is referred to as accelerated aging.
Suitable wet heat treatment of freshly harvested paddy
reduced the pastiness on cooking of rice (Desikachar &
Subrahmanyan, 1957a, 1957b). Accelerated aging can
also be accomplished by heating rough or milled rice to
high temperatures