Effects of Annealing and Concentration of Calcium Salts on Thermal and Rheological Properties of Maize Starch During an Ecological Nixtamalization Process

The objective of the present work was to study the effect of annealing and concentration of Ca(OH)2 (lime) and calcium salts on the thermal and rheological properties of maize starch during an ecological nixtamalization process. Thermal and rheological properties of maize starch changed during the ecological nixtamalization process because of three main causes: the annealing phenomenon, type of calcium salt, and calcium salt concentration. In all treatments thermal properties (To, Tp, and Tf) of nixtamal starch increased owing to the annealing process, whereas the type of salt or lime increased thermal properties and decreased pasting properties in this order: CaCl2 > CaSO4 > Ca(OH)2 ≈ CaCO3. This behavior was because of the dissociation of each salt or lime in water. Anions (OH−) can penetrate much more easily into the starch granule and start the gelatinization process by rupturing hydrogen bonds. Additionally, amylose-lipid complexes were formed during the nixtamalization processes, as indicated by an ...