Rheological Characterization and Modeling of Rice Flour Dough: Effect of Parboiling Time, Moisture Content and Gum Arabic.

Small-deformation compression and stress relaxation studies in addition to nonoral
sensory assessments were performed on rice flour doughs, obtained by parboiling at
different times (0–60 min), moisture (48–60%) and gumArabic contents (0–0.5%).
The response functions were the rheological (firmness and compression energy,
initial and equilibrium moduli and relaxation time) and nonoral sensory attributes
(ease of extrusion, cohesiveness and stickiness) of dough. Compression energy
increased with parboiling time but decreased with moisture content. Relaxation
time varied from 0.15 to 20.2 s, meaning a wide variation in the behavior of dough is
possible to achieve. The viscoamylographic studies indicated that parboiled rice
pastes exhibited more stable status toward retrogradation and showed lesser shearthinning
phenomenon comparedwith their counterpart rawrice samples.The stress
decay curves could be modeled by three-element spring-dashpot Maxwell–Voigt
model (r � 0.81, P � 0.01). The optimum condition for obtaining a dough with
minimum stickiness and maximum ease of extrusion was computed. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Rice is extensively used in various forms of food as whole grain as much as flour.
Because of nonglutinous properties, rice dough fromraw flour cannot be easily flattened
or shaped, whereas thermal treatment like parboiling and the use of gum
Arabic can make the dough suitable for formulating different products.The addition
of gum during dough preparation can retain more water and modify its rheological
properties, improving the dough handling characteristics and textural attributes of
the finished products. The specific applications of reported findings lie in the development
of rice-based products such as ready-to-eat and ready-to-fry/bake snacks,
baby foods and breakfast cereals.