Blunt [2076337]

Washing rice is unnecessary.

The only time it's feasible is if your using the starch water for things such as Korean natural farming, fermentation projects, or feeding plants (which are all interrelated tbh).

As a former chef, we never washed rice. If it isn't well dried after washing, it can introduce much more water than intended due to how much water can be held between the grains, which then changes the consistency of the end product.

Any supposed benefits that rinsing the rice would achieve, would also be achieved during the cooking process, so your adding extra time/steps, and possibly messing with the texture/water content of the end product, when the simple act of boiling would kill off anything funky.

I keep jasmine, basmati, long grain white, long grain brown, and short grain arborio rice in my home, have cooked with each many times, and can say definitively that none BENEFIT from washing beforehand.

Fishyfox [2010062]

"As a former chef, we never washed rice. If it isn't well dried after washing, it can introduce much more water than intended due to how much water can be held between the grains, which then changes the consistency of the end product."

Sorry but this does not make sense. Rice is cooked in water so unless you're gonna keep it for such a long time between washing and cooking that the rice is going to absorb all the water, there's no need to dry it at all.

Personally I wash my rice to get rid of any dirt that might have gotten in there during the production process, and also -tradition-. Boiling dirt does indeed kill bacteria but I don't wanna eat boiled dirt.

Blunt [2076337]

It's not about absorbing the water, it's about the water that's retained in the small spaces between kernels.

It's like wetting sand, or fine gravel... the sand and gravel itself isn't actually absorbing water per say because they are solid (except maybe a small amount held in air pockets/micro fissures in the surface of the stones/sand material - which rice also does, aka pourous surface), the water is held in the tiny pockets of air between the particles.

When your cooking 20lbs of rice at a time, either in the oven or a large pot, the amount of extra water held by the rice is enough to change the consistency from a dry cooked rice that isn't very starchy/sticky, to one that is sticky, wet, and incorrect consistency.


What I feel makes no sense, is washing "dirt" off of your rice... I've never seen dirt filled rice. Maybe in the country your in, but in America (where we produce and process most of our own rice), I've never come across rice that's full of dirt. There is a white substance on rice sometimes, which is starch, or added minerals etc, but not dirt. And so long as your not agitating the rice much while cooking, the white dusty starch usually doesn't effect consistency.... but rinsing does.

A lot of what I've seen spoken about in this thread is people repeating the process they've been shown by their parents, and repeating the logic explained to them by their parents... "tradition". I'm sure I've cooked more rice than most in here, and in much larger quantities than most. You can disagree all you want, but the fact remains... weigh out 20lbs of rice, rinse it, and then weigh it again and you will see what I mean.

The ONLY rice I would rinse, would be sushi rice, and that's solely because that the traditional way to do it, and sushi rice has a sticky consistency to it anyway. Any other rice I would not.. and that's backed by experience in cooking them in quantity and being mentored/trained professionally by other professionals, not learning bad practice from a home cook

Fishyfox [2010062]

I'm aware that wet rice would weigh more and retain more water than dry rice. Except that in both cases of washing / not washing the rice, the rice will be wet in the end since you cook it in water.

Washed rice would not hold any more water than dry rice which is in water. Both of them would have 'water held in the tiny pockets of air between the particles'.

How do you cook your rice, do you measure rice and then a certain amount of water? Or do you use the 'finger method'? Maybe that's where the discrepancies lie, since then the water amount between washed/dry rice would indeed change if you measure rice and water both by weight/volume.

Thanks for repeating your credentials. Hello fellow ex professional kitchen slave trained professionally by professionals lol.

Blunt [2076337]

2 to 1 water to rice by volume.

So if a 5 gallon container of rice is measured, then washed (now retaining water), and then said 5gal container is filled 2x with water and poured over the rice, covered, and thrown into the oven (which is the go-to method when cooking rice at scale)... you have soggy/wet rice.

If you dont rinse the rice and follow the same steps as above, you get a perfect consistency, "dry" cooked rice where the grains have only the slightest starchiness/stickiness to it, so your able to get the individual grains to seperate, while still being able to actually eat a fork-full of rice without it all falling off your fork (describing proper rice consistency is kind of hard using words lol).

I'm sure at smaller scale, this may be less of an issue, and you could possibly do a 1.75 or 1.5 to 1 ratio instead of 2 to 1 to account for the water retention from rinsing. Or if your using a rice cooker or something similar where you add water to a set spot on the cooking device the water retention doesn't matter...

But I again i don't believe rinsing is needed as I've never experienced dirt in my rice regardless. It wouldn't even make sense that rice is dirty based on how it's harvested, subsequently dried, the outer hull is removed entirely, and then possibly refined further by removing the bran from the outer grain leaving the white rice. But again, country of origin may play a role as well, can't speak for other countries and how they handle their rice

Blunt [2076337]

Washing rice is unnecessary.

The only time it's feasible is if your using the starch water for things such as Korean natural farming, fermentation projects, or feeding plants (which are all interrelated tbh).

As a former chef, we never washed rice. If it isn't well dried after washing, it can introduce much more water than intended due to how much water can be held between the grains, which then changes the consistency of the end product.

Any supposed benefits that rinsing the rice would achieve, would also be achieved during the cooking process, so your adding extra time/steps, and possibly messing with the texture/water content of the end product, when the simple act of boiling would kill off anything funky.

I keep jasmine, basmati, long grain white, long grain brown, and short grain arborio rice in my home, have cooked with each many times, and can say definitively that none BENEFIT from washing beforehand.

Show post

Fishyfox [2010062]

"As a former chef, we never washed rice. If it isn't well dried after washing, it can introduce much more water than intended due to how much water can be held between the grains, which then changes the consistency of the end product."

Sorry but this does not make sense. Rice is cooked in water so unless you're gonna keep it for such a long time between washing and cooking that the rice is going to absorb all the water, there's no need to dry it at all.

Personally I wash my rice to get rid of any dirt that might have gotten in there during the production process, and also -tradition-. Boiling dirt does indeed kill bacteria but I don't wanna eat boiled dirt.

Blunt [2076337]

It's not about absorbing the water, it's about the water that's retained in the small spaces between kernels.

It's like wetting sand, or fine gravel... the sand and gravel itself isn't actually absorbing water per say because they are solid (except maybe a small amount held in air pockets/micro fissures in the surface of the stones/sand material - which rice also does, aka pourous surface), the water is held in the tiny pockets of air between the particles.

When your cooking 20lbs of rice at a time, either in the oven or a large pot, the amount of extra water held by the rice is enough to change the consistency from a dry cooked rice that isn't very starchy/sticky, to one that is sticky, wet, and incorrect consistency.


What I feel makes no sense, is washing "dirt" off of your rice... I've never seen dirt filled rice. Maybe in the country your in, but in America (where we produce and process most of our own rice), I've never come across rice that's full of dirt. There is a white substance on rice sometimes, which is starch, or added minerals etc, but not dirt. And so long as your not agitating the rice much while cooking, the white dusty starch usually doesn't effect consistency.... but rinsing does.

A lot of what I've seen spoken about in this thread is people repeating the process they've been shown by their parents, and repeating the logic explained to them by their parents... "tradition". I'm sure I've cooked more rice than most in here, and in much larger quantities than most. You can disagree all you want, but the fact remains... weigh out 20lbs of rice, rinse it, and then weigh it again and you will see what I mean.

The ONLY rice I would rinse, would be sushi rice, and that's solely because that the traditional way to do it, and sushi rice has a sticky consistency to it anyway. Any other rice I would not.. and that's backed by experience in cooking them in quantity and being mentored/trained professionally by other professionals, not learning bad practice from a home cook

Fishyfox [2010062]

I'm aware that wet rice would weigh more and retain more water than dry rice. Except that in both cases of washing / not washing the rice, the rice will be wet in the end since you cook it in water.

Washed rice would not hold any more water than dry rice which is in water. Both of them would have 'water held in the tiny pockets of air between the particles'.

How do you cook your rice, do you measure rice and then a certain amount of water? Or do you use the 'finger method'? Maybe that's where the discrepancies lie, since then the water amount between washed/dry rice would indeed change if you measure rice and water both by weight/volume.

Thanks for repeating your credentials. Hello fellow ex professional kitchen slave trained professionally by professionals lol.

Blunt [2076337]

2 to 1 water to rice by volume.

So if a 5 gallon container of rice is measured, then washed (now retaining water), and then said 5gal container is filled 2x with water and poured over the rice, covered, and thrown into the oven (which is the go-to method when cooking rice at scale)... you have soggy/wet rice.

If you dont rinse the rice and follow the same steps as above, you get a perfect consistency, "dry" cooked rice where the grains have only the slightest starchiness/stickiness to it, so your able to get the individual grains to seperate, while still being able to actually eat a fork-full of rice without it all falling off your fork (describing proper rice consistency is kind of hard using words lol).

I'm sure at smaller scale, this may be less of an issue, and you could possibly do a 1.75 or 1.5 to 1 ratio instead of 2 to 1 to account for the water retention from rinsing. Or if your using a rice cooker or something similar where you add water to a set spot on the cooking device the water retention doesn't matter...

But I again i don't believe rinsing is needed as I've never experienced dirt in my rice regardless. It wouldn't even make sense that rice is dirty based on how it's harvested, subsequently dried, the outer hull is removed entirely, and then possibly refined further by removing the bran from the outer grain leaving the white rice. But again, country of origin may play a role as well, can't speak for other countries and how they handle their rice

Fishyfox [2010062]

Ahh yeah that makes sense then if you measure the rice like that. At home I've always used either a rice cooker and if I have to cook rice at work I use the finger method to measure the water out so there's never been an issue with wet rice after washing.

You're right though that there's probably no dirt in the rice. It's likely an old habit passed down by asians since in our parents' time there used to be much less stringent quality checks. I honestly have no idea if there is dirt or pesticides left in white rice but it feels safer to wash it.

NaT_9_3_0 [2699023]

No need to rinse rice haiyaaa~
There's nothing dirty, maybe some dust only,
just dump in a rice cooker, fuiyoh~

PS: I'm Taiwanese, cook rice more than hundred times already :P