2001 AACC Annual Meeting Charlotte, North Carolina October 14-18, 2001 Charlotte Convention Center

With the use of hybridization and biotechnology, the world maize supply has become increasingly more genetically diverse. Diversity has allowed producers to grow maize with increasing yields and a variety of uses, but it also has introduced more raw material variability into maize processing. Previous investigators have shown a hybrid effect in a variety of processes during maize wet milling, including steeping, starch extraction and waxy maize starch acetylation. We investigated how starch from different dent maize hybrids differs in functional properties and reaction efficiency after being modified. If a hybrid effect on dent maize starch modification is detected, processors could select hybrids that produce starches that are modified more efficiently and have properties that are desirable to their customers. Maize from ten dent hybrids grown in 1998 and nine dent hybrids grown in 1999 was wet milled in the laboratory. A 180 g sample of starch from each milling was acetylated with 10.8 g acetic anhydride and 1.5% NaOH at 30 C and pH 8.0 to 8.4. Each starch sample was tested for acetyl content and was analyzed by RVA viscoamylograph. Reaction efficiency was determined from the amount of acetyl added during reaction and the acetyl content in starch samples after the reaction. Differences among hybrids were found for reaction efficiency and RVA properties, indicating a hybrid effect on dent starch acetylation.