Review on Rice Flour Manufacturing and Utilization

Background: The Korean government launched a project in 2008, where the am ount of rice used as raw ingredient in rice-based foods in 2012 was planned to increase up to 10% (470,000 ton) of the total rice production through developing various new rice-based processed foods and their commercial manufacturing technology. Among the four major rice-based processed foods, rice cakes and noodles need rice flour as their main raw ingredient. Technology in rice flour utilization and manufacturing is far behind than the technology pertinent to wheat flour in many subject areas. Purpose: This review aims to provide information on rice flour utilization and manufacturing with some fundamental subjects in the area of size reduction. Results: A variety of food items including bread, noodle, cake, cookie, muffin, pre-mix, beverage, vinegar, surimi, and artificial meat have found rice flour as their raw ingredient. Rice bread made out of 100% rice flour has been developed and is now sold in retail stores. Various noodle products made from rice flour are also on the market. Issues on product definition and labeling regulation about rice flour content of the products were explored. Generalized grinding equations available in the literature were seldom used in practice; inste ad, it has been a general practice to develop empirical equations from test milling data. Introductory remarks on three popular particle size measurement methods (sieving, Coulter counter, light diffraction) were explained. Mathematical expressions frequently used to describe particle size distribution and to correlate cumulative quantity of particles with particle size were represented. Milling methods used in producing rice flour were described along with their advantages and disadvantages. Because of their profound effect on functional properties of the rice flour, four rice flour milling equipments used at both laboratory experiments and commercial manufacturing plants were discussed.