Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to test a producing the Germinated Brown Rice (GBR) by using an automatic process worked with a hot water from solar collector system. This system not only decreases a process time, but also can decreases an electricity usage.
The experiments comprise of experiment of traditional producing the GBR, experiment of automatic producing the GBR and percentage analysis of the GBR.
Hot water above 50oC of solar collector system is fed to a process tank and mixed with cool water to maintain the temperature around 40oC. The Brown Rice (BR) are contained on the container and placed in the process tank. The BR is soaked by programmable time. The mixed water is let out of the process tank when finish time while the BR are left in process tank to ferment by programmable time. On the process tank, a microcontroller controls soaking time, soaking temperature, water level and fermentation time are involved.
The experimental results show that the percentage of GBR which produced by automatic system as 90.51%, closely with the percentage of GBR of traditional method but process time, soaking time and ferment time, is shorter than a half. In part of the BR that can not germinate less than 4%. Finally, energy consumption saves 233 kWh/year and payback period as 0.56 year.