# Influence of Rice Variety and Freezing on Flour Properties
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Functional Properties of Flour Samples Obtained from Raw and Frozen Rice  
The functional properties of the flours obtained from raw and frozen Basmati and Arborio commercial rice varieties are shown in Table 3. The SP and WSI of Basmati raw flour were lower, and WAI was higher compared to Arborio raw flour. According to [PERSON] et al. [7], [PERSON] et al. [27], and [PERSON] et al. [28], SP and WSI depend on the content and structure of amylopectin. Thus, the high content of amylopectin, and the presence of high proportion of long chains in the amylopectin structure, increase starch crystallinity and the temperature of starch gelatinization [28]. Likewise, the structure of starch granules, and especially the distribution of amylose and amylopectin, can influence the SP and WSI values [7]. Thus, the higher content of amylose, and its distribution in central region of starch granules contribute to maintaining the compactness of the granules, providing a lower solubility [7]. According to our results, the low values of SP and WSI obtained for Basmati flour can be explained by the significantly higher amylose content (\(p<0.05\)), 17.96%, compared to the Arborio flour, 4.32% (Table 4), and by the higher gelatinization temperature of 84.4 \({}^{\circ}\)C, in case of Basmati flour, compared to the 77.8 \({}^{\circ}\)C registered for Arborio flour, respectively, as indicated by the Mixolab curves. Initially proposed for predicting wheat flour functionality, the SRC was additionally used in the last years for investigating the hydration properties of the gluten free flows. The SRC profiles of the flour samples obtained raw and frozen Basmati and Arborio are presented in Table 3. The Basmati flour presented significantly higher values of W-SRC and SC-SRC (\(p<0.05\)) and significantly lower value of Su-SRC (\(p<0.05\)), compared to Arborio flour. SC-SRC is associated with starch damage, LA-SRC with protein characteristics, and Su-SRC is associated with pentosans characteristics, while W-SRC is influenced by all of flour constituents [18]. The differences between the SRC profiles of Basmati and Arborio rice flows might be explained by the differences observed in terms of proximate composition (Table 1), the damaged starch content (Table 4). Regarding the hydration properties of flours obtained from frozen Arborio rice, the results indicated in Table 3 revealed the significant increase of WSI and SP values compared to the flours obtained from the corresponding raw rice samples (\(p<0.05\)). These results can be explained by the changes registered in the particle size distribution, and particularly by the increase of the percentage of fine particles. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [2] noted that usually the presence of fine particles results in increased SP values. Compared to the flours obtained from raw Basmati and Arborio rice samples, the flours obtained from the corresponding frozen samples presented significantly lower SC-SRC values (\(p<0.05\)), probably due to the differences in the starch damage of these flour samples. The decreases of starch damage in flours resulted from frozen rice grains agree with the observation of [PERSON] and [PERSON] [2]. On the other hand, the LA-SRC values of the flours from frozen rice varieties decreased very little for both rice varieties compared to the flour from raw rice, and these results could be explained by the differences in terms of particle size distribution. Higher percentages of fine particles were obtained in case of the flours from frozen rice, and they might be formed by starch granules detaching from the protein matrix. Some of the proteins could have been separated into