Abstract: Rice is a staple food in many countries. After harvesting, the rice moisture content can reach up to 30% -35%. When rice is not dried enough, it is prone to be mildewed, resulting a deteriorating quality and a huge economical loss annually. Hot air drying is one of commonly used drying methods after rice harvest, however, a high drying temperature usually causes rice cracked-waist, therefore, it is urgent to find a balance between hot air drying temperature and post-drying quality. In this paper, Daohuaxiang No. 2 rice was used as the research object, the vitrification transformation theory was combined with the fractional drying process, and the wet base moisture content was adjusted to 30.0% ±0.5% by artificial humidification method. The constant temperature, variable temperature and vitrification transformation tests of rice were carried out by electric blast drying oven, differential scanning calorimeter and other equipments. The effects of drying temperature, heating rate and moisture content of wet base on the quality of rice after drying were analyzed to optimize the drying process. The results showed that although the drying rate of the glass drying process was slow, the cracking rate of rice was reduced to a large extent and the quality of rice after drying was guaranteed. Compared with the constant temperature drying process with the same drying rate, the cracking rate decreased by about 64.7%, and the mopping rate increased by about 112.5%. The changes of protein content and amylose content of rice before and after drying were little different from those of the glass drying process with variable temperature, but the drying rate was higher and the drying time was shorter. In this paper, the rubber phased variable temperature drying process was proposed. In the first stage, the drying stage was kept at a constant temperature of 65 ℃. After the water content of rice decreased to 22%, the temperature decreased to 40 ℃ in the second stage of variable temperature drying. This technology could effectively reduce the quality loss of rice after drying, improve the drying efficiency, and realize a high quality and high efficiency drying of rice with high moisture. The method in the present work provides a new idea for hot air drying of high moisture rice.