Patent ID: 7690295

Claim:
A method for producing wash-free rice which does not require washing before cooking in a waterless environment comprising steps of: performing a wash-free rice producing operation including: preparing polished rice from brown rice polished by a built-in rice polishing machine and sifted by a built-in sifting machine or polished rice from outside sources; preparing parched bran used as an abrasive for polishing rice; preparing a mixture consisting of said polished rice and said abrasive in a desired ratio; stirring said mixture in a tank by revolving stirring blades such that said polished rice and said abrasive are mutually rubbed in order to strip sticking bran including skin bran and foreign debris from the surfaces of rice grains; sifting said stirred mixture in order to separate bran from the rice grains; separating residual sticking bran and foreign debris from the sifted rice grains in order to obtain finished wash-free rice; recovering the separated bran for recycling the bran as the abrasive, wherein: in said stirring step, a revolving rate of said stirring blades is raised, if a surface level of said mixture in said tank is lower than a predetermined level either (1) at the end of the wash-free rice producing operation or (2) said mixture is not filled to capacity of said tank; supplying ionized air from an ion generating apparatus to said sifting step and said separating step in order to eliminate static electricity so that foreign debris are prevented from sticking to the finished rice grains again; and wherein in said separating step, said ionized air flows upward, while rice grains flow downward to eliminate static electricity effectively from the rice grains.