Cereal Chem 41:533 - 542.  |  VIEW ARTICLE

An Electronic Method for the Measurement of Heat-Damage in Artificially Dried Corn.

C. E. Holaday. Copyright 1964 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Recent work by several investigators has shown that shelled corn dried in air at 180 F. or higher is damaged with respect to its commercial use. Many chemical and physical properties of corn have been examined in an attempt to find one or more properties which would serve as an index of damage in corn dried at excessive temperatures. A method based on measurement of moisture distribution within the corn kernel has been studied and found both accurate and rapid as an indication of damage by drying. Moisture distribution measurements were made indirectly by determining the electrical capacitance and d.c. resistance of the corn. Two sets of artificially dried samples on which the prime starch yields had been determined were tested for their capacitance-resistance relationships. Results showed the capacitance-resistance measurements are an accurate index of drying damage. Glutamic acid decarboxylase activity of these samples also showed a highly significant correlation with the capacitance-resistance measurements.