. End use quality of some african corn kernels. 2. Cooking behaviour of whole dry-milled maize flour, incidence of storage

Abstract

The pasting behavior of whole maize flours from 21 African maize cultivars (five local ecotypes and 16 new cultivars) was determined and compared to that of market flours from Cotonou (Benin). More viscous pastes were obtained from local ecotypes that were more friable and gave finer flours. Characteristics of solvent (concentration and composition) and dispersed (volume fraction, swelling power) phases of the pastes were determined: paste viscosity increased with the volume fraction of the dispersed phase and with its rigidity (evaluated by dry matter concentration of dispersed material), whereas solvent phase did not play any direct role on overall paste viscosity. Flour storage promoted the formation of fatty acids that could complex amylose during paste cooling; therefore, amylose solubility decreased after flour storage for several months, and paste viscosity at 50 °C increased due to some hardening of swollen particles.