Rice starch and SGRS

[AdmiralDonSnider]

I started to wonder if rice starch, which is basically available at any pharmacy for low prices, is the same as soluble glutinous rice starch. When I look at the steep prizes for SGRS at some suppliers sites, I assume these are two different animals...

 

Shimizu discerns "parched starch" and "quick starch", but that doesn´t enlighten me either...

 

Could someone please inform me (or tell me if could actually save some money)? Thanks a lot!

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

I bound my stars with 3% sgrs, so with 1kg sgrs you can bind 33kg of stars.

 

And yes, there's a difference, sgrs dissolves in a jelly kind of substance in cold water, rice starch doesn't. It just sinks to the bottom.

[WSM]

I started to wonder if rice starch, which is basically available at any pharmacy for low prices, is the same as soluble glutinous rice starch. When I look at the steep prizes for SGRS at some suppliers sites, I assume these are two different animals...

 

Shimizu discerns "parched starch" and "quick starch", but that doesn´t enlighten me either...

 

Could someone please inform me (or tell me if could actually save some money)? Thanks a lot!

 

I took a box of rice starch (rice flour for all I could tell) and par-boiled it. Par-boiling is similar to making gravy. It involves mixing the starch with cold water and heating it in a saucepan while frequently stirring with a whisk. When the starch mixture starts to clarify (goes from opaque to translucent), remove it from the heat and don't over-cook it. Spread the par-boiled starch as a thin layer on a non-stick (important!; it wants to stick to everything) cookie sheet and dry it in an oven set at 150 to 200 degrees F (about 65 to 90 degrees C), till completely dry. Break up the dried starch till as small as possible by hand, then mill it in a coffee mill till powdered. Store in a cool dry area.

 

I tested the dried, par-boiled rice starch by mixing with a little water and adding the smallest drop of iodine tincture (from a pharmacy). The tincture turned a red/violet color indicating it was amylopectin; the right stuff. If it were indigo (dark blue/black), it would indicate either starch (under-cooked) or amylose sugars (over-cooked) and not work well at all.

 

If you want to try making it, try 2:1 or 3:1 by volume, water to starch. I may be wrong about the ratios, but give it a try anyway. For reference read Dr. Shimizu's remarks in "Fireworks, the Art, Science and Technique". I have a friend who made his from left-over rice from dinner. I'll try to find out his method and report later.

[Twotails]

Honetly, I was making Dango one time (cooked in boiling water methoud) and had the balls all rolled, not flavored yet( besides the sweet rice wine) and i put it in my holding oven, little did i know but someone turned the temp to 200F(for somthing, i dont know what) and it ended up drying the dango, well i thought it was ruined, so i smashed it up ( and passed it threw a corse-mesh screen) and continued drying it. i ground it in the coffiee grinder, and had it sitting on the shelf for the longest time. i just tested it like above with iodine, and well, it Does seem to be SGRS...

 

what a waist of dango.

 

I wonder it it would work if you baked the rice starch/flour in the oven like cornstarch, would it convert to a form of SRGS, like the way the cornstarch turns to dextrin?

 

i shall go test this.

 

as soon as i find my rice starch.

[AdmiralDonSnider]

I bound my stars with 3% sgrs, so with 1kg sgrs you can bind 33kg of stars.

 

And yes, there's a difference, sgrs dissolves in a jelly kind of substance in cold water, rice starch doesn't. It just sinks to the bottom.

 

Yes, you can bind a lot of stars with 1kg of SGRS, but the prize of about 23 GBP (at a well-known british supplier site) is still hellishly pricey compared to the 2€ I pay for 1kg of dextrin.

 

However, thanks for pointing out that there is a difference.

[Ralph]

try a local asian grocer

[WSM]

try a local asian grocer

 

Yup! And if the ingredients say: "rice glue, fried", you've got the right stuff (but test it with iodine tincture to be sure)!

[AdmiralDonSnider]

Today I visited a local asia shop. The guy there told me that something like SGRS does not exist (I don´t know if he was referring to the world or his shop), but told me that it is "glutinous rice flour" (basically milled glutinous rice) what I´m looking for. So I bought an lb for close to nothing. Still can´t believe that I´ve got the right stuff. Any ideas?

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

If it's treated it's soluble, Sgrs. You can try to dissolve it in cold water, but I think you will be disappointed. Edited March 24, 2010 by FREAKYDUTCHMEN

[Arthur]

There is a method for making SGRS I've seen it but don't have it as I can make dextrin easily, or buy it more easily.

[50AE]

The big problem with SGRS is the milling. I've already broken a coffee grinder, because I didn't crush the pieces enough.

[Arthur]

http://www.pyrosociety.org.uk/forum/topic/1462-sgrs/

http://www.pyroguide.com/index.php?title=SGRS

 

However one of the UK proponents of SGRS has now reverted to some use of dextrin as the moisture level is much more tolerant. SGRS can swell if over wet and then the stars crack as they dry. With dextrin stars so wet that they slump badly and stars so dry they barely cohere will both dry hard. Sometimes dextrin stars will soften with dampness while SGRS stars do not.

 

Lots of real, current Chinese formulations have resins for binders, phenol-formaldehyde and the like. Similarly some Russian formulations specify iditol. These make stars that are moulded in a die and that then harden in hours to a star that is not sensitive to dampness, in fact resin bound stars will survive the disposal process of soaking in water.

[Ventsi]

I found this at the local Asian grocery market for a price I could not resist.

 

 

I'm going to try making SGRS out of it. If all goes as planned there will be a blog. =]

[Peret]

Glutinous rice is a particular species, what my wife calls "sticky rice" - it's what holds sushi and rice balls together. She buys it in the asian food section of the supermarket for about twice the price of ordinary rice. If you read Shimizu, he says to boil or steam it until the grains start to disintegrate, then pound it into a paste and "parch" it at a particular temperature, which could mean just drying it or possibly a similar process to roasting corn flour for dextrin. I'm not sure how I'd go about doing it starting with rice flour. Obviously it needs some kind of cooking to convert it. Probably just boiling up a thick rice sauce and roasting it dry in a medium oven will do it, though there would be a lot of water to evaporate. Maybe you could just roast the dry flour like corn flour. However, my SGRS (I bought some from Skylighter) is pure white and doesn't show any sign of browning.

[Ventsi]

I tried boiling/ drying but the stuff kept forming a skin. On the other side, it make a glue that whoops wheat paste's @$$. Stickier, faster drying and you need less flour.

[50AE]

I made some SGRS from a 500g batch of glutinous rice. I found the supplier of rice yesterday, a chinese grocery shop

 

http://pyrobin.com/files/pict0546.jpg

Edited June 4, 2010 by 50AE

[swervedriver]

SGRS can swell if over wet and then the stars crack as they dry.

 

Rolling in increments using SGRS solved any cracking problems IME. SRGS makes incredibly hard stars though using less of a percentage than dextrin.

[Mumbles]

I made some SGRS from a 500g batch of glutinous rice. I found the supplier of rice yesterday, a chinese grocery shop

 

http://pyrobin.com/files/pict0546.jpg

 

Do you have any real commercial SGRS to compare against? I have a feeling that this stuff is going to turn out the same way as dextrin. It will work, but pale in comparison with the real deal. Shimizu's process is over 40 years old, the technology, just like with dextrin, has almost surely advanced.

[50AE]

I can assure you this stuff is great, I like it much better than commercial dextrin! I don't have any commercial SGRS though, but this one makes very strong stars. It isn't the only advantage, also SGRS keeps the stars flexible and resistant when whet, while dextrin bound stars crumble very easily. It makes rolling very good! I love this stuff.

The main PITA is powdering it though! It's very hard and it took me ~16 ball milling hours to mill it at an acceptable finess.

[WSM]

Shimizu's process is over 40 years old, the technology, just like with dextrin, has almost surely advanced.

 

 

I believe the methods used for SGRS used in Japan for pyrotechnics has remained unchanged for well over 100 years. New materials seem to make very slow inroads on the commercial pyro scene due to the traditional nature of the craft and concerns about safety when unknown materials are introduced. We amateurs account for the largest amount of innovation in fireworks development overall, IMHO.

 

WSM

[Mumbles]

The other possibility is that Japanese SGRS for pyro has remained unchanged, but the stuff we get which is surely more designed for food processes has deviated from the method Shimizu presents. It would seem that steaming and mashing rice into a cake and letting it sit before grinding and roasting wouldn't be as economically viable. The SGRS I currently have that I received from Tim S. comes from Remy in Belgium. I don't recall the product number off hand. I think it is Remyline, which is listed as a "native waxy". Who really knows what that means though. I would consider acid catalyzed dextrin to be native too, where was something like CMC or sucralose is chemically modified, but those would just be my ways of thinking about it.

[WSM]

I can assure you this stuff is great, I like it much better than commercial dextrin! I don't have any commercial SGRS though, but this one makes very strong stars. It isn't the only advantage, also SGRS keeps the stars flexible and resistant when whet, while dextrin bound stars crumble very easily. It makes rolling very good! I love this stuff.

The main PITA is powdering it though! It's very hard and it took me ~16 ball milling hours to mill it at an acceptable finess.

 

I wonder if we can avoid the grinding hassles if the SGRS is used as a wet paste instead of drying it first (make it fresh as you need it)? Without speciallized equipment, powdering the dried flakes can be a real booger (it's like grinding fingernails with a mortar & pestle; good luck!).

 

I've made firefly comets (40% charcoal content) with great success using freshly made wheatpaste (works really well when the paste is still warm off the stove). Why not wet your (water compatible) compositions with rice paste instead of water?

 

WSM

Edited July 7, 2010 by WSM

[Fourthsaxon]

The SGRS I currently have that I received from Tim S. comes from Remy in Belgium. I don't recall the product number off hand. I think it is Remyline, which is listed as a "native waxy". Who really knows what that means though. I would consider acid catalyzed dextrin to be native too, where was something like CMC or sucralose is chemically modified, but those would just be my ways of thinking about it.

 

I also have this SGRS from Remy, but this one is NOT the same as they sell it in pyro shops.

This SGRS from Remy is the same thing your grandmother used to stiff your clothes after washing. 100% Rice starch.

Put some of this SGRS in cold water, it will become a milky substance. Put the real SGRS in water and you won't have any milky substance but you will have a clear water that look like gel.

Basicly there are 2 Rice starches, Native and modified starch. We need to have the modified starch variant that is soluble in cold water.

@Mumbles : Did you already created some stars with this SGRS from Remy ? Do your stars become hard ?

[Mumbles]

Oh yeah, I love it. Stars dry rock hard. I really can't tell the difference between it, and what I got from Skylighter. The Remy stuff may be a finer powder. I did dissolve some of the Remy once, and I did get kind of a milky color, but still mostly transparent. I thought I had just not stirred enough as there still a few clumps around too. Plus the jar was covered with bright aluminum at the time.

 

The exact brand I have is Remyline XS-FG-P.

[dagabu]

I know that this post is over a year old but I have a question about SGRS and what exactly it is.

 

I have a bag of glutinous rice flour and a tub Remyline XS SRGS and I cant tell the difference at all. One I got from a Asian Market, 5# for $7.49 and the tub of SGRS for $12.00 shipped for one pound. Is this simply a name issue where the common rice starch is repackaged and sold as a pyrotechnic binder vs. a food thickener?

 

-dag