How Did People Husk Rice In Ancient Times?

Food is the first necessity of the people. Eating has always been everyone’s top priority, and rice is one of the most important staple foods in the world. A bowl of rice requires farmers to start from seedlings and work hard for several months to harvest the fruit (rice). To become crystal clear rice, the rice must go through the important process of husking to transform the rice.

The equipment for husking rice is called a rice mill, and some are called rice threshers. It uses electricity or diesel engines to drive the machine to husk the rice into brown rice, and then it needs to be husked again to become polished rice. The removed rice husks are broken into bran, which becomes an important animal feed.

Next, let us lead everyone to understand the ancient and modern rice husking methods!

How did people husk rice in ancient times?

When there were no modern mechanical equipment, how did people turn rice into rice on the table? After being collected from the fields, the rice had to go through a period of sunbathing, and the moisture in the rice would evaporate, and it would have a golden skin, which was called rice husk. Farmers would take it and bite it every day to determine the moisture content in the rice.

The dried rice was sent to the wind blower (also called a fan) to separate the debris and rice. First, the rice was put into the funnel above, and then the rice would fall into the wind blower, and then the fan blades in the wind blower would be turned to generate wind power, blowing the rice stalks and weeds from the rice to the left exit, while the heavier rice would slide directly to the other exit.

Then put the rice grains without impurities into the stone mill (also called earth rice husk), which is a tool for removing rice husks. Let the rice flow into the round hole on the top and rub it on the surface plate. After the heavy grinding teeth rub, the rice husks will be peeled off (the stone mill can also grind powder). When there was no rice mill, farmers used this method to turn rice grains into rice.

At this time, it becomes light yellow brown rice. This light yellow skin is called bran. It enters the wind blower again to blow away the hard shell. It also needs to pass through the stone mortar and wooden pestle to beat the brown rice in the trough. The friction of the wooden pestle hitting the stone mortar is used to remove the thin skin, and finally it becomes white rice.

In the process of husking rice, in addition to earth rice husks, stone mills are also used to husk, but these traditional rice milling methods are powered by manpower or livestock, and the production efficiency is not high. They have been eliminated and replaced by more efficient machines.

Modern mechanized rice husking

To process rice using modern equipment, the rice must first be dried to remove moisture and screened to remove impurities. The rice will enter the rice mill, where the main process is to remove the rice husk. The rice enters the middle of two rubber rollers rotating in opposite directions, where the rice husk will be crushed and fall off under the pressure of the rollers.

At this time, the rice separated from the rice husk is still brown rice. It enters the separator, where the brown rice is rolled and separated on a large grinding wheel to remove the yellow bran on the surface, and becomes white rice. After screening and separation of broken rice, rice with the same size and quality can be packaged and sold.