A comparative study on the physical characteristics and cooking quality parameters of commercial brands of Basmati rice

Randomly selected samples of three popular commercial brands of Basmati rice (designated as A, B and C) available in Mumbai city were studied with respect to their proximate composition and differences in their quality evaluated in terms of length by breadth and elongation ratio, differential length by breadth ratio, water uptake, loss of solids in cooking water, swelling index and volume expansion ratio. The l/b ratio and elongation ratio varied between 4.47 to 4.81 and 1.45 to 1.59 respectively. The differential length by breadth ratio showed a wide variation from 5.88 to 9.48 among the three brands studied. Brand A recorded the highest length by breadth and elongation ratio whereas brand C recorded the highest differential length by breadth ratio. The water uptake values and the loss of solids in the cooking gruel varied between 172 to 262 and 0.87 to 2.70 (g/100 g of rice) respectively, among the three commercial brands. The swelling index and the volume expansion ratio did not show much variation among the three brands ranging between 28 to 31 for the former and 2.00 to 2.21 for the latter. Based on the differential length by breadth ratio, water uptake and swelling index values, which are the most reliable quality indices; brand C was found to be the best followed by brands A and B. The study of the texture of the cooked rice grains indicated that brand C had the softest grains, which was in conformity with the findings in cooking quality characteristics.