Impact of the Pretreatment of Grains on the Interparticle Porosity of Feed Material and the Torque Supplied During the Extrusion of Brown Rice

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of drying, grinder type, and moistening conditions on the interparticle porosity of feed material and the torque supplied to the screw during the single-screw extrusion processing of brown rice. The grains were dried at 60 degrees C up to moisture contents of 9 and 6% and then milled using two grinder types (disc and roller). The milled products were moistened at levels to produce extruded snacks (11 and 14%). Irrespective of drying the grains, lower particle diameters in the fine and coarse fractions, and narrower distributions were obtained by grinding brown rice in a rollermill than in a disc mill. The disc mill products presented lower interparticle porosity and generated higher torque values than the roller mill products. A reduction in grain moisture from 9 to 6% only decreased the interparticle porosity of disc mill products and increased the torque. An increase in feed moisture from 11 to 14% only increased the interparticle porosity of roller mill products and decreased the torque regardless of grain moisture. This work contributed to understanding the impact of the morphology of the particles in the torque variability during the extrusion processing of brown rice. Few published works correlate physical properties of the feed material with extrusion dependent variables. In the present study, feed materials with high interparticle porosity were produced with roller mill and when extruded they generated low variabilities in the torque.