Q:

Safe to wash rice the night before and leave overnight before cooking?

I'm trying to figure out a convenient way to bring fresh rice for lunch. Cooking it the night before and leaving it in the fridge causes it to become dry and hard and unpleasant, and I've read that it's not safe to leave cooked rice out at room temperatures for long periods of time (such as overnight). 
So I thought it would be nice if I could at least save myself the trouble of having to wash it in the morning. Would it be safe to wash it the night before, and cook it in the morning? If so, what storage methods should I use? Just leave it out on the countertop? Or should I leave it soaking in water? Or either dry or soaking in an air-tight container? Or should it be refrigerated? I'd also like to hear any methods anybody else has for having fresh rice at lunch!
I should mention I'm referring to short grain Japanese white rice. Thanks! 

A:

I did this in my restaurant for years, it really does work great. Make your rice in a huge batch, cook it as if you're planning to eat it then, but then let it cool until handlable. Once it is cool enough, bag it in individual servings and freeze it. Refrigerating cooked rice quickly ruins it, freezing it, however, works great. If your servings are fairly small, snack sized ziplocks work great for this, otherwise use sandwich sized. Make sure you press the air of the bags, I take all of the small bags and seal them together in gallon sized ziplocks to give them one more layer of protection in the freezer. Either with the rice solidly frozen, or at lunchtime (defrosted, cool rice), throw the baggie in the microwave. You don't even have to open the baggie, when it pops open that's a sign to check it. It may need a bit of a mix and a few more seconds in the microwave, or it may be done, it just needs to be heated through. The hot rice will be almost indistinguishable from freshly cooked. If you don't have a microwave, you can drop the sealed baggie into simmering water, or take the frozen or cool rice out of the bag and steam it to heat.

A:

My understanding from now far-in-my-past food safety courses is that uncooked rice does not have the same risk of bacterial growth even if soaked in water at room temperature. However, after about 24 hours, it does start to do things that are reminiscent of sprouting (though white rice won't actually sprout), including grassy aromas.
Most Japanese families with automatic rice cookers who eat rice in the morning place washed rice in their rice cooker with the appropriate amount of water and set a timer. I doubt there are frequent occurrences of food-borne illness directly attributable to this method, but cooked rice left in the danger zone is known to be a great breeding ground for unpleasant micro-critters.
Typically the soaking time used in these situations is 6-12 hours.

