the peeled pericarp is washed through the 12 mesh screen and collected over a 100 mesh screen below the process water is recirculated until all of the corn is largely free of pericarp in practice the corn should be processed in the abrading device from a period of about 2 10 minutes typically about 5 minutes after abrading the corn is placed in a continuous corn washer that removes the remainder of any pericarp the washer includes a rotatable perforated reel with internal water jets and has a strainer for catching the removed pericarp the debranned corn resulting from this process has a moisture content of from about 15 35 by weight more preferably from about 20 30 by weight and most preferably about 25 by weight the ph of 1 1 w w mixture of water and this debranned corn ranges from about 6 5 7 5 in the next step as set forth in fig1 the debranned moisturized corn is subjected to infrared radiation in a micronizer or similar device the purpose of micronizing is to cause rapid heating of at least the outer portion of the corn while effecting cooking of a fraction of the starch granules therein in the micronizing process near infrared or micron sized wavelength radiation is employed basically in the range of from about 1 8 3 4 microns this near infrared radiation penetrates the grain causing constituent molecules to vibrate at a.