Structure and Functional Properties of Sorghum Starches Differing in Amylose Content

Starches were isolated from grains of waxy, heterowaxy, and normal sorghum. To study the relationship between starch structure and functionality and guide applications of these starches, amylose content, amylopectin chain-length distributions, gelatinization and retrogradation, pasting properties, dynamic rheological properties, and in vitro enzyme digestion of raw starches were analyzed. Heterowaxy sorghum starch had intermediate amylose content, pasting properties, and dynamic rheological properties. Stress relaxation was a useful indicator of cooked starch cohesiveness. Cooked heterowaxy sorghum starch (10% solids) had a viscoelastic-solid type of character, whereas cooked waxy sorghum starch behaved like a viscoelastic liquid. Amylopectin of normal sorghum starch had a slightly higher proportion of chains with degree of polymerization (DP) of 6−15 (45.5%) compared with amylopectin of heterowaxy starch (44.1%), which had a gelatinization peak temperature 2 °C higher than normal sorghum starch. Heterowaxy sorghum starch contained significantly lower rapidly digestible starch (RDS) and higher resistant starch (RS) than waxy sorghum starch.