Effects of cooking methods on the physicochemical, textural and microstructural properties of hot salt puffed germinated brown rice

This research investigates the effect of cooking methods prior to puffing on the quality of puffed germinated brown rice (GBR). The cooking methods include parboiling and steaming (PS), electric rice cooking (EC), ultrasonic pretreatment and parboiling and steaming (UPS), and ultrasonic pretreatment and electric rice cooking (UEC). The quality metrics are the physical, chemical, textural and microstructural properties of the puffed GBR. The hot salt puffing process was used to expand GBR. The results showed that EC and UEC significantly reduced the bulk density (0.30 g/mL compared with 0.36 g/mL for PS and 0.35 g/mL for UPS) and length/breadth ratio (2.55 compared with 3.21 for PS and 2.89 for UPS) of puffed GBR (p