The Comparison of Structural, Physicochemical, and Digestibility Properties of Repeatedly and Continuously Annealed Sweet Potato Starch

In order to investigate the varied effects of repeated annealing treatment (RANN) and continuous annealing treatment (CANN) on the structural, physicochemical, and digestibility properties of the sweet potato. The 75% starch-water suspensions were prepared and incubated at 65 °C for 8 cycles and 96 hr. The results exhibited that RANN and CANN did not influence the starch granules and polarization cross obviously. The crystal type of RANN and CANN starches still maintained A-type, while the relative crystallinity increased. The solubility, swelling power, peak viscosity and breakdown of RANN and CANN starches decreased, but the gelatinization transition temperatures, trough viscosity, final viscosity, setback, and pasting temperatures of starches increased after annealing treatments. Furthermore, RANN and CANN decreased the RS and RS + SDS contents with the increase of annealing cycles and time. The RANN was more effective in modification of the crystallinity, solubility, swelling power, pasting, gelatinization transition temperatures and enthalpy, and digestibility of starch before four times compared with the CANN ones. By and large, RANN may be a potential way for modification of structural, physicochemical and digestibility properties. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: The described RANN and CANN starch provide new ideas for the study of modified starch. Furthermore, this study revealed the mechanism of annealing treatment and it was concluded that the repeated annealing treatment could provide a new potential way for the modification of starch.