UARPP Facilities

Rice Processing Program

The Rice Processing Program’s facilities and equipment are primarily located at the University of Arkansas Food Science Department, Fayetteville, AR.  Our rapidly growing research program has the facilities and equipment for complete physico-chemical analysis, sensory evaluation and nutritional evaluation of rice and rice products, including:

Cereal Quality Laboratory

Cereal Quality Laboratory (1,000 ft2 ) equipped with instruments used for quality assessment of milled rice that includes head rice yield, color, milled rice chemical composition, and rice flour pasting properties,

Rice Physical Properties Laboratory

Rice Physical Properties Laboratory (250 ft2) equipped with a diode array-based NIR to measure moisture, protein, fats, and fiber of grains, a single kernel characterization system, and an Image Analyzer for measuring rice kernel dimensions.

Pilot Plant

Pilot Plant (2,000 ft2) equipped with grain drying and processing equipment including temperature and relative humidity control units, phase transition analyzer, self-referencing near-infrared reflectance spectrophotometer and a newly developed prototype for measuring volumetric expansion of cooked rice kernels. This facility also features a lab drying system for both fluidized and non-fluidized rice drying and a system for measuring the EMC of rice and rice products.

Rheology Laboratory

Rheology Laboratory (500 ft2 ) equipped with a miniature rice cooker, a texture analyzer, a rheometer, a differential scanning calorimeter, a thermo-mechanical analyzer, a dynamic mechanical analyzer, a rapid visco-analyzer, and viscoamylographs.

Nutrition Laboratory

Nutrition Laboratory ( 1,000 ft2) to evaluate the role of food/beverage products in vivo on human health-related issues.

Sensory Laboratory

Sensory Laboratory ( 2,000 ft2) for consumer and descriptive sensory evaluation of rice and rice products and other food/beverage products.

View our comprehensive listing of Rice Processing Program Equipment

To view Standard Operating Procedures utilized withing the Rice Processing Program click on the procedure listed below.

Drying

Milling

Physical Tests

Chemical Tests