A comparative study of the physical and cooking characteristics of common types of rice collected from the market by quantitative statistical analysis

Abstract

Fifteen types of rice collected from Kurdistan region-Iraq were investigated by principal component analysis (PCA) in terms of physical properties and cooking characteristics. The dimensions of evaluated grains correspond to 5.05-8.75 mm for length, 1.54-2.47 mm for width, and 1.37-1.95 for thickness. The equivalent diameter was in the range of 5.23-10.03 mm, and the area took 13.30-28.25 mm2. The sphericity analysis values varied from 0.32 to 0.56, the aspect ratio from 0.17 to 0.39, and the volume of the grain was measured in the range from 4.48 to 17.74 mm3, hectoliter weight values were 730-820 kg/m3, and true density from 0.6 to 0.96 g/cm3. The broken grain ratio was 1.5-18.3%, thousand kernel weight corresponded to 15.88 to 22.42 g. The water uptake ratios for 30 min of soaking were increased at 60°C compared to 30 and 45°C. The PCA was used to study the correlation of the most effective factors. Results of PCA showed that the first (PC1) and second (PC2) components retained 63.4% and 34.8% of the total variance, which PC1 was mostly related to hectoliter, broken ratio, and moisture content characteristics while PC2 was mostly concerned with hardness and true density. For cooking properties, the PC1 and PC2 retained 88.5% and 9.3% of the total variance, respectively. PC1 was mostly related to viscosity, spring value, and hardness after cooking, while PC2 was mostly concerned with spring value, hardness before cooking, and hardness after cooking.