L. No.

17

Milling of Rice / Paddy

Introduction
Paddy is the seed of certain variety of grass of Gramineae family. Botanical
name of paddy is Oryza Sativa L. Oryza sativa is further divided into three sub-species
viz. Javanica, Japonica and Indica. India and tropical Asian countries cultivate mostly
Indica species. Today rice has become one to the most important and major food grains
of the world. Nearly 1/2 to 2/3 of total world population has partially or totally adapted
rice as their main food. Asians meet half of their daily energy requirements through
intake of rice as their main food. Asians meet half of their daily energy requirements
through intake of rice. Most of the protein needs are met through rice only.
The paddy grain is a living matter and represents a colloidal capillary porous
body. It contains large amount of micro and macro capillaries through which water can
move out or inside of the grain surface. Paddy grain structure is shown in Fig. 5.20. It
comprises of Palea and Lemma, two halved of the seed cover known as husk or hull and
bottom portion known as empty glume which keeps pales and lemma in position. Rice
kernel remains covered under the husk.

Fig. 5.20: Paddy grain

Paddy undergoes certain processing treatments prior to its conversion into edible
form. The various unit operations are cleaning, drying, storage, parboiling (optional)
and milling. The edible portion of paddy is called rice. The Kernel is enclosed by hull or
husk. The weight of hull is 18-22% of the total weight of paddy grain. The endosperm
weights about 70 to 72%, whereas 4-6% bran is removed during polishing. Paddy in
India is traditionally milled in hullers. Engleberg huller removes husk and bran together,
hence the by products are mixed. With hullers the degree of polishing can not be
controlled to desired level. Use of hullers results in more breakage of grains and loss of
nutrients. Governments of India promulgated the Rice Milling Industries Regulation and

1
Licensing Act in 1959, according to which the use of Engleberg hullers was banned for
shelling paddy.
Clean and good quality paddy can give a yield of 74%. But due to several
reasons it has not been possible to achieve 74% yield of rice by traditional methods and
machines. Use of modern machines like rubber roll sheller along with improved
methods of drying, paddy separation, bran removal and graders can give higher out turn.

Parboiling
It is a pre-milling (optional) treatment given to paddy prior to its milling to
achieve maximum recovery of head rice and to minimise breakage. Parboiling treatment
was first developed in some Asian countries to reduce the milling losses. In this process
paddy is soaked and the wet paddy is heated and then dried. The paddy grain is mainly
composed of polygonal starch granules. The voids or intergranular spaces are filled with
air and moisture. Due to these voids cracks developed and it causes breakage during
milling. This breakage may be reduced by gelatinising the starch. During gelatinization
process starch swells and fill the voids.
During soaking of paddy water penetrated into starch granules and results in
swelling of grains. In heating the energy weakens the granule structure and more surface
becomes available for water absorption and results in irreversible granule swelling. This
phenomenon is called gelatinization of starch.
The temperature at which gelatinization takes place is known as the
gelatinization temperature and it is specific for particular variety in the near hood of
700C.
The main objectives of parboiling are :
(1) to increase the total and head rice yield of paddy
(2) to prevent the loss of nutrients during milling
(3) to salvage wet of damaged paddy and
(4) to mill the rice according to requirements of consumers.

Parboiling of paddy is carried out in three steps, (1) soaking (2) steaming, and
(3) drying (Fig. 5.21). Theoretically soaking of paddy can be done at or below its
gelatinization temperature. The lower the temperature used, slow is the process of
soaking and vice-versa. Soaking period can be reduced by subjecting the paddy to
vacuum for a few minutes before soaking and / or soaking under pressure in hot water.
Heat of gelatinization of starch is supplied by saturated steam. Parboiled paddy may be
dried in the shade or in the sun or with hot air.
Shade drying takes longer time but gives excellent milling qualities. Rapid
drying in sun or with hot air causes higher breakage during milling. The most
convenient practise in to dry in two passed with a tempering period in the moisture
range of 15-19% (wet basis).
 Fig. 5.21: Various steps of parboiling of paddy
I. Soaking II. steaming III. drying

Advantages of parboiling
1. The milling yield increases and the quality is improved, as there are fewer
broken grains.
2. The grain structure becomes compact and vitreous, even if some kernels were
entirely or partially chalky.
3. The milled rice becomes translucent and shining.
4. The shelf life of parboiled paddy and mille3o parboiled rice is longer than in the
raw state, as germination is no longer possible and the kernel becomes hard
enough to resist the attack by insects and to adsorption of atmospheric moisture.
5. The grain remains firmer during cooking and less likely to become sticky.
6. A greater amount of water is absorbed during cooking causing the rice to swell.
7. After cooking the rice absorbs less fat from added condiments, the rice keeps
longer and does not become rancid easily.
8. Parboiled rice retains more proteins, vitamins and minerals.
9. Parboiled rice is more digestible and less solids are left behind in the cooking
water.
10. Shelling of parboiled rice is easier.
11. Bran of parboiled rice has more oil.

Disadvantages of parboiling
1. The heat treatment during parboiling destroys some natural anti-oxidants, hence
rancidity developed in parboiled rice during storage is more than that in raw rice.
2. Parboiled rice takes more time to cook than raw rice and may have charac-
teriustic off-flavour which may not be liked by raw rice eaters.
3. Parboiling process needs extra capital investment.
4. Parboiling adds to the cost of drying.
5. As paddy is soaked for a longer time during parboiling, it may be attached by
spores which may cause health hazard.
6. More power is required for polishing of parboiled rice. The process becomes
difficult and lowers the capacity of polisher.

In spite of the above disadvantages 1 to 2 per cent extra rice is obtainable by

Parboiling methods
The methods of parboiling may be classified as under.

A. Traditional methods:
1. Single boiling
2. double boiling.

B. Modern methods.
1. CFTRI method
2. Jadavpur university method
3. Converted process
4. Malek process
5. Avorio process
6. Cristallo process
7. Fernandes process
8. Schu;e process
9. Rice grower’s association off California process.
10. Pressure parboiling process

1. CFTRI method:
In this process, parboiling tanks are filled with clean water and heated to a
temperature of about 850C by passing steam through the coils placed inside the tank.
Sometimes hot water is pumped from other sources into parboiling tanks. The resultant
temperature of paddy-water mixture in the tank stays around 700C. After soaking paddy
for 3 to 3.5 hours, the water is drained out. The water discharge valve is kept open in
order to remove condensed water during steaming. Soaked paddy is exposed to steam at
a pressure of about 4 kg/cm 2 through the open steam coils. Soaking and steaming of
paddy are done in the same tank. The parboiled paddy is taken out by opening the
bottom door and dried either under sun or by a mechanical dryer.

Milling Terminologies

Milling of paddy is the major operation in paddy processing. It removes husk

1. Head Rice : It refers to the milled whole rice of 6/8 and more of actual
kernel size.
2 Broken Rice : Rice kernels which are lesser than 6/8 of the actual size are
called broken rice. It is further divided into three categories,
(1) big brokens, these include 4/8 to 6/8 of kernel portion,
 (2) small brokens, these include 1/8 to 4/8 parts of kernel and
(3) points – lesser than 1/8 part of rice grain.

3 Total Rice : It includes both head and broken rice.

The main objective of milling is to obtain maximum head rice with minimum bran and
foreign matter. Breakage of rice mainly occurs during milling operation, therefore, it is
of great importance to the rice industry. Due to bad milling, breakage may be as high as
half of the total rice. If has been reported that if the total efficiency of rice milling
operation is increased by 2%, 1.2 million tonnes of extra rice can be made available in
India. Most of the paddy in our country is being milled by rice hullers, and the losses
due to hullers are estimated to about 5%. Moreover hullers give a mixture of rice husk
and bran as by product, hence it prohibits its economical use.