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April 05, 2020

Beyond the Ri’ichi: Part 3: Processing long-grain rice – Husking

by Hiromi Saita, Senior Staff, International Management Office, Satake Corporation, Japan

Long grain rice processing, as well as short grain, requires unique technology and techniques due to their physical characteristics. As a manufacturer, we continuously develop and improve equipment for long grain rice. Satake utilises technology gained from a long history of processing short grain rice and experience from processing various products.  
 


Let’s take a look at long grain paddy husking
There are two basic yet fundamentally important requirements to husk long grain rice. Firstly, proper paddy feeding to the husking equipment is required. When feeding paddy in vertical free fall, grain may overlap each other and cause grain breakage due to excessive pressure at a localised point on the grain.

In other words, inappropriate feeding leads to a drastic decrease in yield for long grain rice. It is important to feed paddy evenly without stacking, to ensure the long life of the husking equipment. Secondly, in many 24-hour-operation large-scale facilities, the two rubber rolls are swapped every one or two days to evenly distribute rolls wear.

When using poor quality rubber rolls, swapping become more frequent, so does downtime and it becomes more significant as the number of machines increases. Sometimes, at these facilities, operators are hired specifically for rubber rolls swapping and replacement. To reduce machine maintenance and down time, it is important to increase the throughput capacity of each machine while minimising the frequency of roll swapping and replacement.

Satake, in 1997, adopted its time proven Optical Sorter Product Conveying Chute to achieve steady paddy feed. The technology originally developed for the Optical Sorters was adopted for Huskers. Paddy was conveyed in the chute without overlapping and then fed into the gap centerline between the two, left and right, rubber rolls.

The rubber rolls were laid out in an inclined position perpendicular to the chute. The Satake Husker not only achieved steady single layer product conveyance but also increased husking capacity. However, this solution required constant adjustment of the chute angles to re-direct the flow of paddy towards the gap centerline as it keeps shifting, as the rubber rolls gradually wear out. Satake resolved this issue by incorporating a mechanism that adjusts the chute angle automatically in Huskers FT-type, introduced in 2004.


Read more HERE.
 

The Global Miller
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which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.


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