Method and plant for obtaining a ready-to-use food product based on rice germ

1. A method for obtaining a ready-to-use food product based on rice bud, comprising the steps of:

providing a certain quantity of rice bud;

subjecting said quantity of rice bud to a radio-frequency drying treatment; and

packaging at least part of said quantity of dried rice bud;

wherein the step of providing a certain quantity of rice bud comprises the steps of:

providing a certain quantity of husked rice or paddy rice; and

separating rice buds from rice grains of the husked rice so as to obtain the certain quantity of rice bud with a purity of more than 70% by weight and wherein the radio-frequency drying step occurs within 24 hours of the separating step of the rice buds from the rice grains of the husked rice; and

wherein the step of separating the rice buds from the rice grains comprises the steps of:

subjecting the husked rice to a first separation treatment by means of a pneumatic cyclone in order to obtain separation between heavier material falling to a bottom of the cyclone and lighter material evacuated upwards;

subjecting the heavier material exiting the cyclone to a treatment by plansifter so as to obtain separation of the rice grains from waste including bran, husk and middling;

subjecting the rice grains separated in the plansifter to a classification step by means of a grinding machine in order to obtain separation of rice tips from the rice grains of a size equal to or greater than half of a grain of the rice grains;

subjecting the rice grains exiting the classification step to a second separation treatment by means of a pneumatic cyclone so as to obtain separation between the heavier material falling to the bottom of the cyclone and the lighter material evacuated upwards;

subjecting the heavier material exiting the second cyclone to a treatment step in a vibrating tank from which the rice bud is precipitated onto a densimeter table so as to obtain a classification of the rice bud according to the specific weight by separating smaller buds from larger ones; and

subjecting the larger buds from the densimeter table to a second vibrating tank.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising a cooling step provided between the drying treatment and the packaging step.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the packaging step is carried out directly after the drying treatment or cooling step, without interruption and without interposition of other processing steps.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein the drying treatment causes a temperature of the rice bud to rise to between 75° C. and 90° C.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the cooling step causes a temperature of said rice bud to be lowered to less than 20° C.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the temperature of the rice bud at the end of the cooling step is between 12° C. and 16° C.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the drying step is performed at a frequency of 27 MHz.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a moisture percentage of the rice bud at the end of the drying step is between 5% and 8%.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said certain quantity of rice bud has a purity greater than 90% by weight.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the packaging step is carried out directly after the drying treatment, without interruption and without interposition of other processing steps.

11. The method according to claim 10 , wherein the drying treatment causes a temperature of the rice bud to rise to between 75° C.-90° C.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the plansifter has a hexagonal cross section capable of generating a discontinuous oscillation of the product.

13. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said step of packaging occurs in vacuum cans.

14. The method according to claim 13 , wherein the rice bud is packaged in metal vacuum cans in a modified and pressurized atmosphere.

15. The method according to claim 14 , wherein the atmosphere includes an addition of nitrogen.