Experiments to measure starch yield (II)

100g of each type of rice was mixed with 200g of distilled water at room temperature. The slurries were vacuum packed using a Sammic Vacuum Sealer V410 and heated for 20 h at 35 ºC in a water bath. Together with the rice and water one magnetic stirring bar was placed inside each vacuum sealed bag to stir the samples during 3min at 1000rpm at room temperature. Then, the sealed bags were opened and sieved mixing manually during 2min more. Each water-starch solution and sieved rice was weighted separately. After that the rice grains were washed two times with 80g of distilled water and mixed manually during 2min. The water-starch solution obtained was added to the initial solution resulting from sieving and centrifuged for 20min at 4000 x g in relative centrifugal force (rcf) units using a Labofuge 400 Centrifuge. The supernatant was decanted and the pellet obtained was dried in a oven for 20h at 50º. The fact that the samples contained more than a 10% w.b. of water precluded the possibility of using a vacuum oven.

After this process the samples obtained were burnt and, therefore they were not suitable for performing viscosity experiments. Despite that, the starch was weighted.

The following experiments will be performed drying at a lower temperature and less time.

The experiments were carried out with the help of Dr Olga Kuzmina from Prof. Welton’s Research Group.

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