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Effect of Steeping Corn with Lactic Acid on Starch Properties

¹Instituto de Agroquímica y Tecnología de Alimentos, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, P.O. Box 73, 46100 - Burjassot, Valencia, Spain. ²Corresponding author. E-mail: mharos@iata.csic.es. ³Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1428 - Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Pasting and thermal properties of starch from corn steeped in the presence of lactic acid and at different steeping times (8, 16, 24, 32, and 40 hr) were investigated. Corn kernels were steeped at 52°C with 0.2% (w/v) SO₂ and with and without 0.5% (v/v) lactic acid. The isolated starch obtained by corn wet-milling was characterized by determining starch recoveries, retrogradation, and melting transition properties of the lipid-amylose complex by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and pasting properties by the Rapid Visco Analyser (RVA). Damaged granules and the starch granule size were determined by using microscopic techniques. Starches from corn steeped in the presence of lactic acid (LAS) were compared with control starch (CS) steeped without lactic acid. Greater starch recoveries were obtained for LAS samples than for CS samples, and practically no damaged starch was present in the former preparations. The presence of lactic acid affected the RVA profiles and steeping time affected the viscosities of the starch suspensions. In general, the RVA parameters of LAS suspensions were lower than those of CS suspensions. No great modification of the thermal properties was observed; only a slight decrease in amylopectin retrogradation and in the melting enthalpy of the amylose-lipid complex was observed. Hydrolysis of the starch during steeping seems the most probable explanation to the starch modifications produced by lactic acid addition.