Abstract:
The main objective of this research is to study the effect of process variables on rice vermicelliquality. The study was divided into 3 parts. Part one involved the effect of moisture content (35, 40and 45 percent), temperature (100, 108 and 115 ?C), and time (30, 45 and 60 minutes) of steamingon degree of starch gelatinization. Part two involved the effect of moisture content (35, 40 and 45percent), degree of starch gelatinization (30, 50 and 70 percent), temperature (100, 108 and 115 ?C),and time (30, 45 and 60 minutes) of steaming on rice vermicelli quality; maximum tensile force,maximum compression force, cooking loss, water uptake, lightness and yellowness. In the final part,the process optimization for rice vermicelli production was determined.According to the results of the first part, it was found that the degree of starch gelatinizationdepended on time more than temperature and moisture content, respectively. By Response SurfaceRegression, the regression equation had R2 value as 95.2 percent. Then, the regression equation wasused to predict time for starch steaming at each level of degree of starch gelatinization (30 50 and70 prercent, respectively.) which had an error less than 5 percent compared with the real process.For the 35 and 40 percent moisture content, the starch was not able to be mixed homogenously.Therefore, only 45 percent moisture content was used in this research. In the study of the secondpart, it was found that the degree of starch gelatinization affected rice vermicelli quality exceptcooking loss which was due to the temperature. Then, the regression equations for each responsewere analyzed by Response Surface Regression and it had R2 value as 94.7 percent for maximumtensile force, 97.5 percent R2 for maximum compression force, 40.3 percent R2 for cooking loss, 87.8 percent R2 for water uptake, 90.1 percent R2 for lightness and 89.6 percent R2 for yellowness.In addition, Overlaid Contour Plot used the relations and quality references to identify the optimumcondition of the rice vermicelli production. It was found that the optimum condition were 55 60percent degree of starch gelatinization, 45 51 minutes for starch steaming and 25 30 minutes forrice vermicelli steaming. These results were valid for 45 percent initial moisture content and 105 oC steaming process.