Modelling the wetting and cooking of a single cereal grain

Three models are presented for the wetting of whole grains ofcereal. Two are for temperatures below gelatinization temperatures,one of which incorporates the effects of swelling of the grain.A third model is presented for wetting of a grain at temperaturesabove gelatinization, and hence cooking the grain. The modelsare developed as partial differential equations, and solvedin a variety of ways. A model that ignores swelling at temperaturesbelow gelatinization is solved for wetting times by using theconcept of mean action time, which reduces the problem to anexactly solvable linear Poisson equation. The other two models,which include swelling and cooking respectively, are solvedapproximately, taking advantage of the steep nonlinear diffusionfronts that develop. The aim of the modelling is to improveunderstanding of the cooking of whole-grain cereals prior toprocessing into breakfast cereals. Moisture penetration curvesare obtained and compared. Regions where the penetration rateis approximately linear are noted, suggesting that nonlineardiffusion equations are a promising way to model grain wettingand cooking.