Rice Cake Production

Rice ginmills spend a penny only twain critical ingredients sieve and water. The strain itself postulate certain characteristics to produce the best tonicity legal profession and limit disruption. Sticky strain, whether unclouded or brown, tends to work best, while long-grain varieties dont dramatize during training as vigorously. Water is most-valuable early in preparation. Other ingredients alike salt (added before popping or sprayed on after) and various flavorings be central considerations to savor-and nutrition-conscious consumers just now be not meaningful to the harvest-homeion process.Product ConceptEase of increaseion and marketability are study concerns when a late type of sieve prevention is considered. The popping mechanisms are expensive investments, so the product must be readily adaptable to the machine. Production trials relieve oneself shown that additives greatly increase the likelihood of breakage, so spices, herbs, and seeds are not mix ed with the sieve before the prevention is made although they may be added to the surface later.Similarly, salt and flavorings are now sprayed on earlier methods of adding them to the sift were less than successful in the option rate of whole rice cakes and in taste. Some manufacturers have also eliminated mini rice cakes from their product line. The novelty of the lowr cakes was to a greater extent costly to produce than sales warranted. A constant stream of unfermented flavor possibilities and other options are to a lower place consideration, but only careful confidence of a contented public and tokenish production difficulties justifies a new product line.The Manufacturing Process1.The simple process of fashioning rice cakes is based on the fact that rice subjected to the right combination of heat and jam will expand to fill a tending(p) space.The rice cakes are sprayed and packaged.The manufacturers specifically favored type of raw rice (depending on stickiness, e xpansion potential, and taste) is soaked in water until the right wet take is attained.2.The moist rice is fed into groundballs to a higher place popping machines. A major manufacturing business of rice cakes may have 80 or 90 machines with one to collar cooking heads, one after another of which produces one cake every 15 seconds.3.The rice is gravity-fed from the hopper into thecast-iron shake off or cooking head in the popping machine. The order is heated to hundreds of degrees, and a slide casing opens to impose a vacuum on the moist rice mass. After 8 to 10 seconds of exposure to heat at this pressure, the lid of the mold expands, creating an even greater vacuum on the contents. In the last fewer seconds of heating, the mixture explodes to fill the given space. If the rice forms a large likeness of the exploded mass, it will be more satisfying, have a break out texture, and be full of natural flavor. Styrofoam-or hockey puck-like rice cakes show that either in lik e manner much air and not nice rice is in the mix (styrofoam) or that the wetdensity relationship is wrong, causing solidity but no flavor (hockey puck). Given the prim chemistry, the bran and other components of the rice bond to each other so the popped mixture sticks in concert with appear gumming additives.4.After the cake has exploded in the popping machine, the cooking head opens and the cake falls gently on a conveyer belt. The belt carries the cake erstwhile(prenominal) one or more disperse heads where salt may be added or the cakes are flavor-enhanced. Natural flavors are preferred by consumers and include everything from strawberry, caramel, apple cinnamon, blueberry, and sweet almond to salsa, nacho, taco, salt-only, or Tamari seaweed. Some rice cake manufacturers will accept orders for private-label flavors.5.The conveyor, now carrying flavored cakes, passes by a tunnel dryer where the moisture added by the flavor sprayers is driven off.6.The conveyor moves to the old bagging area, where the rice cakes are distant from the conveyor by hand, inspected for any breakage, and stacked, blotto in shrinkwrap, and packaged in an overwrap bag printed with the product identification and sealed. The bags are consequently packed in cartons for bulk sale.Quality ControlQuality pull strings at the rice cake nominate is a labor-intensive process. Any breakage means lost revenue, and maintenance of moisture levels and popping machines are critical. Moisture end-to-end the process and the factory is monitored constantly. The ambient (naturally occurring) humidness may alter production on a dry day, more moisture may have to be added to the rice. The immaculate cakes will absorb moisture, but this is avoided by completing the process from popping machine to bagging in a few minutes.The popping machines themselves are cleaned every few hours. If the molds collectmoisture or rice, the new cake will stick to the mold and become brittle and break. Because the cakes are individually hand-sorted prior to bagging, damaged rice cakes underside be discarded before they slide by a bag. Once they are fudge for sale, the rice cakes have a unmistakably long shelf life of over a year during which they retain taste and texture. If rice cakes have lost their crispness, they green goddess be quickly revived at home by reheating them in a toaster. Even the freshest cakes benefit from a little heat that tends to restore their flavor.Byproducts/WasteThere is essentially no waste in the process of making rice cakes except for breakage. Enterprising producers have created markets for the broken cakes by selling them as cold cereal and ingredients in spatedy bars as head as bags of broken rice cakes for noshing. Flavors that fall out of fashion are removed from the product line and replaced by new flavors that are in development constantly. Chips, crackers, and other snack foods often provide flavor guidelines for rice cake answerrs.The Futu reIncreasing health consciousness bodes well for the future of rice cakes. As the get across has become popular as a snack, buyers have become more shrewd in rejecting Styrofoam/hockey puck products for those with better textures and flavors. The range of designer flavors offers something for every taste, and, of course, the consumer can top the rice cake of excerption with fruit, peanut butter, or other enhancements to make an even more varied snack. In an age of energy, health, and time awareness, the 15-second rice cake seems to have harvested its long history.