Cooking rice (rice to water ratio by weight)

[tkamiya]

Cooking rice is more of an art than science.  For one, more rice you cook, ratio of rice:water goes down.  For two, kind and age of rice affects the ratio changes.  Two of my rice cookers require different amount of water, too.

OT:  My girlfriend has a 1/2 cup (HALF CUP) rice cooker.  I never seen such thing existed!

[coppice]

Cooking rice is more of an art than science.  For one, more rice you cook, ratio of rice:water goes down.  For two, kind and age of rice affects the ratio changes.  Two of my rice cookers require different amount of water, too.

OT:  My girlfriend has a 1/2 cup (HALF CUP) rice cooker.  I never seen such thing existed!

If it were art, then a human would be able to beat an inexpensive fuzzy logic rice cooker. Those things give great results every time with varying types and ages of rice and people being sloppy about adding the exact amounts of water and rice. Humans don't come close.

[tkamiya]

If it were art, then a human would be able to beat an inexpensive fuzzy logic rice cooker. Those things give great results every time with varying types and ages of rice and people being sloppy about adding the exact amounts of water and rice. Humans don't come close.

I can easily cook pretty good rice using simple ordinary pot and standard American electric stove.  I use rice cooker because I am lazy and I don't want to keep watch over it.  Yes, they do pretty good job every time.  What I was talking about was, rice and water is not a simple ratio.  When cooking double the amount of rice; for example, you don't double amount of water.  Instead, use little less water than double.  I don't know why this happens.  It just works for me.

[IanB]

What I was talking about was, rice and water is not a simple ratio.  When cooking double the amount of rice; for example, you don't double amount of water.  Instead, use little less water than double.  I don't know why this happens.  It just works for me.

There is no reason in chemistry why this should be, so perhaps the reason might be in physics? For example, some water may be lost as steam from the pot by evaporation, and that amount may not be proportional to the amount of rice in the pot?

[tkamiya]

There is no reason in chemistry why this should be, so perhaps the reason might be in physics? For example, some water maybe lost as steam from the pot by evaporation, and that amount may not be proportional to the amount of rice in the pot?

Indeed the most simple type of rice cooker uses evaporation and accompanying temperature rise as a timer.  When all water evaporates away temperature rises above the boiling point, then it will shut itself off.  The proportion thing is the same when cooking by regular pots though.  I just don't know why it works this way.

[coppice]

There is no reason in chemistry why this should be, so perhaps the reason might be in physics? For example, some water maybe lost as steam from the pot by evaporation, and that amount may not be proportional to the amount of rice in the pot?

The chemistry of rice cooking must be quite interesting. If you let a good fuzzy logic rice cooker run its normal program with good quality rice you get very tasty result. If you run the fast program most cookers have, you get rice in about 1/2 to 2/3 of the time, but it can be pretty tasteless. The texture is usually fine, but its tasteless. I don't know what they do to speed up cooking, or why this gives a tasteless result, but I do wonder.

[PlainName]

Indeed the most simple type of rice cooker uses evaporation and accompanying temperature rise as a timer.

Perhaps related, I have an egg cooker where you load it up with eggs, spill some water into the tray and leave it to do the biz. The amount of water determines whether the eggs are soft or hard boiled. Seems pretty simple, but you put less water in for more eggs where I'd expect to put more water in. It's non-intuitive to me, and perhaps the business with double the rice with less than double the water is similar.

[tkamiya]

It would be interesting if we could put thermocouples and take some measurements.  After all, this IS electronics forum....