4. Discussion

4. Discussion

4.1 Key Findings, Comparison and explanations

We have found that Basmati Rice had the highest amount of alcohol (per 100ml) at 87% of alcohol and Glutinous rice had the lowest amount of alcohol at 1% (per 100ml). Our results showed that the rice had very different fermentation rates over a period of 1 week. Our hypothesis compared our results was not the same. This may have been due to the fact that our hypothesis was based on results that had larger portions of rice and fermented longer. There were somewhat the same results compared to the hypothesis for certain rice such as glutinous rice. Glutinous rice is notorious for being the longest to ferment. It takes about 1-2 months just to ferment glutinous rice as compared to the average 1-2 weeks for other types of rice. Research have shown that Glutinous Rice has only 1 type of starch which is amylopectin as compared to other types of rice which have 2 types of starch amylopectin and amylose (Spiegel, 2014). The process of which fermentation takes place is firstly starch has to be broken down into sugar. The sugar then has to be broken down into simple sugars to allow the yeast to react with these sugars during fermentation(Pepin, 2015). Hence, the absence of 1 type of starch in glutinous rice may have affected the fermentation rate. Basmati rice has the fastest fermentation rates as possibly Basmati rice is the longest rice (length) in the six types of rice we are testing. This could have affected the fermentation rates due to its exposed surface area. For the hypothesis, yeast was not used in the experiment, so its probably why there were less alcohol compared to our experiment with yeast. As yeast uses the glucose and sugar in the rice, more alcohol would be made. Without yeast, the starch can only be fermented by a certain amount, with the yeast however, the starch would be converted into alcohol.

4.2 Limitations and Recommendations

One of the limitations is that the rice will get mouldy and will prevent us from getting accurate results. When mould appears, it is a sign that there was oxygen in the container. With oxygen, fermentation cannot happen as it needs an absence of oxygen.

Different brands of rice cookers were used. The type of rice cooker was random, so the kinds of rice were being cooked by different rice cookers

4.3 Evaluation of Hypothesis

Our results did not support our hypothesis. Our prediction of the results was mostly wrong, except for the glutinous rice. As we predicted, glutinous rice would have the least amount of alcohol. As there is only one type of starch, amylopectin, which is harder to break down. Other kinds of rice have two types of starches, amylopectin and amylose. The amylose would be easier to break down, making the other kinds of rice easier to break down. We figured out that also when we researched for our hypothesis, the percentage of alcohol after fermentation was without yeast. However, our results had fermented with yeast and that explains the reason for the big difference between our hypothesis and actual results.