Cooking oil is one of the essential needs in all kitchens worldwide to make tasty foods. Among the many edible oils available, refined rice bran oil is the best and healthiest choice many people make today.  It is the reason that its global market size is to double from 6.67 to 12.27 billion US dollars from 2020 to 2028. The significant reason is the 45 % monosaturated and 37% polyunsaturated fats in the bran oil.  But the best plants made by reputed manufacturers are essential for the physical refining of rice bran oil.  

What is Refined Rice Bran Oil?

Rice is the most popular crop in many countries, like India, China, and others. The oil extracted from the outer brown layer of the rice after the chaff or rice husk is rice bran oil. It is best for high-temperature cooking needs like deep frying or stir-frying because of its high smoke point of 450 F or 232 C.

Many Asian countries use rice bran oil for cooking delicious dishes that are also nutritious as it has a balanced1:1 ratio of monosaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Also, vitamin E antioxidants and phytosterols help keep the skin supple, soft, and wrinkle-free to look young and beautiful. The refined rice barn oil has no impurities to increase immunity and keeps weight in check to avoid many chronic and other diseases. 

What is the Physical Refining of Rice Barn Oil?

Rice bran oil is a mixture of stearyl and triterpene esters of ferulic acids to have high fractions of tocotrienols and tocopherols, known as vitamin E. Hence the most common refining method of crude barn oils is the physical method that keeps the oryzanol in the refined oil. 

It is an antioxidant that removes cholesterol by reducing its absorption in the body. Unlike the chemical process that destroys the oryzanol, it is more in the physical refining of rice barn oil to protect the liver, reduce weight, prevent diabetes, and other benefits. 

This article will discuss the making of refined rice bran oil, its benefits, and its many physical refining processes. 

What are the Steps for the Physical Refining of Barn Oil?

There are many steps involved in the physical refining of barn oil that, includes the following:

• There are two forms of degumming acid and enzymatic to remove phospholipids, color pigments, polycyclic aromatic compounds, dirt, trace metals, etc., using pre-bleaching to increase the barn oils’ stability and to remove dark color and be the precursor to oil-off flavor for further refining of barn oil. 

• Dewaxing is a refining step to eliminate the higher melting points compounds like waxes or triglycerides, including the process carried out at 18 to 20 C temperature to avoid crystallizing saturated triglycerides to remove them easily and quickly to make the soil healthy.  

• Winterization keeps the barn oil looking clean by removing the impurities like saturated triglycerides and waxes that are visible at low temperatures to improve its quality for cooling and filtering processes.

• Post-bleaching removes the entire phospholipids and oil color pigments to make the barn oil the highest quality for use to live a healthy life. 

• Deodorization includes processes like de-aeration, heating, deodorization, de-acidification, and oil cooling using specific stripping agents that are most common for a particular time through the hot oil at low temperatures to remove volatile components. 

Mectech is the pioneer in India for making machines for facilitating the physical refining of rice barn oil with customized designed bleachers to eliminate mechanical agitation that also saves power and reduces the bleaching earth consumption. For the dewaxing step, Mectech offers crystallizers and cooling systems allowing nucleation at high temperatures.